Of Feathers and Fazbears
by An Amateur Supervillain
Summary: Mike Schmidt, desperate and in the throes of bankruptcy, has seen his saving grace in his local newspaper; working the night shift at Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria! However, things quickly turn pear-shaped, and Mike finds himself resorting to speaking to the resident animatronic chicken, the same one that had attempted to kill him many times over, in a cry for help. MikeXChica.
1. Humble Beginnings

Mike Schmidt was, put simply, not a very rich man.

In fact, when he got off of the evening bus and made his way to his brand spanking new job, all he could think about was how excited he was to get his end of the week wage of $120. Why, that would be enough money to net him hot meals for the rest of the week!

Mike had become rather accustomed to cold showers and frozen waffles throughout the past year since he had left his parent's house, so this would be a very welcome change for him. If he managed to save up enough, he may even be able to afford a microwave by the end of the month; that alone was his incentive for taking this job.

Thus far, Mike's life had been one of utter discomfort - ever since he left his parent's house, that is. He had gone from a relatively content life in a nice, comfortable house to sheer bankrupt misery in a grotty little flat. He wouldn't dare tell his parents, though. He may have been 23, but this was pretty much the first year that he had ever lived for nobody but himself. If his mom or dad ever somehow heard about how he was living now, they'd never let him out of the house again.

On that note, he noticed he had reached his destination.

Nervously, he looked up at the large, bubbly text that was positioned just above the set of double doors that he used to so relish bursting through, still glowing its bright, proud yellow after all these years. He felt slightly comforted by its warm, welcoming glow. 'Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria', the sign boldly signalled. He muttered to himself, "Alright, Mike. Professionalism. Just like dad taught you."

Mike licked his thumb and ran it through his hair, smoothing it. He had always figured appearance was key when it came to netting jobs. After smoothing out his clothing, he pushed open the doors, puffing his chest out confidently and striding forwards with his gaze held high.

So high, in fact, that he didn't notice the 'Wet Floor' sign directly in front of him until his foot slipped out in front of him, his body attempting to follow behind. Now in a sorry heap on the floor, Mike couldn't help but yell out a profanity or two before frantically getting up and attempting to fix the one grubby suit that he had on. Once again, first impressions were key. He didn't want to meet his employer looking like a used mop.

Speaking of employers, Mike was startled by a voice that was not his own coming from behind him.

He whirled around, being mindful of the wet floor this time, and stared at the source of the voice; it was quite obviously his employer, judging by his formal attire, the sophisticated air he had about him and the way that he was holding the keys to the pizzeria in his hand. He was an aged man, with grey hair that matched the colour of his suit. He wore a red tie, and had rather noticeable crow's feet beside his eyes. He looked at Mike for a second or two before speaking.

"And you would be…?"

"H-Hm? Oh! Oh, sorry. Uh, my name's Mike. Mike Schmidt. I-I'm, er, here for the night shift?"

Mike mentally scolded himself for his nervousness. 'Smooth as a sack of gravel, dumbass.' He thought to himself.

"Ah! You're Mike! Well, where are my manners? Welcome to Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria, Mike! I have no doubt you'll love it here." Mike's employer greeted politely, casually spinning the keys to the establishment in his hand. He spoke with a British accent. "If you'll just follow me, I'll show you to your office. No time to look around today, you see. Your shift begins in two minutes!" He stated, quickly ushering Mike along. Mike was rather disappointed, considering he loved this place as a kid. He was raring to see what had become of the animatronic animals he had once loved so dearly.

Unfortunately, the opportunity did not arise, as Mike's employer took a shortcut through Pirate Cove. Mike couldn't help but notice how tattered the purple, starry curtain was - as well as the 'Out of Order' sign just in front of it. Foxy had been his favourite as a kid; it hurt to see such history in his life be closed down so simply.

Mike's employer stopped at one of the large steel doorframes that led into Mike's office, pushing him in gently. He tossed him a cap and body warmer that Mike hadn't seen him holding beforehand, Mike fumbling to catch them. He sat down in the large leather chair in the middle of the office, looking at the new clothing. The hat was labelled, 'SECURITY' and the body warmer had a goofy looking image of a pizza slice next to a poorly-made I.D. card on the right breast that had his name scrawled on it and nothing else. Mike looked up, giving the man a funny look.

"Put them on," He said, smiling strangely. "All of our security guards wear it."

Mike inspected the clothing once more before standing up to put on the body warmer. There was a single minute left until 12AM.

"One of our more experienced security guards will fill you in in more detail once your shift starts. Enjoy yourself, Mike."

Mike nodded at him briskly as he continued to stand there, almost entirely still. Simply watching him with dark brown eyes. Mike looked down at the cap and put it on.

When he looked away from the cap once more, his employer was gone.

Wide eyed, he quickly looked outside the door he had been propped up against. Nothing. Not even the door at the far end of the hall swinging, even slightly. Just him being there one second, and gone the next.

Mike stood pondering how the man could have just disappeared for a few seconds longer before half-heartedly passing it off as the man simply being in a rush. Either that, or he was seeing things. No more curdled milk before his nightshifts from now on.

Mike slowly made his way back to his seat, plopping down onto it tiredly. He groaned as he realised he had forgotten to bring his lunch. Well, it was either him that groaned or his stomach, anyway.

Mike started as the large phone on his desk began to ring. He pressed the brick phone to his ear, slightly annoyed at being bested in mental warfare by a non-sentient device, before realising it was an automated message. He exasperatedly waited. After two rings, the message began. He was surprised to hear a man who sounded younger than him on the other end, considering this was meant to be the 'more experienced' security guard. Nonetheless, Mike sat back in his chair and listened to what this 'Phone Guy' had to say.

Fast forward two hours later, just after the comforting sound of another human voice had left Mike's ears, and he was frantically sifting through security camera feeds on his complimentary company tablet, paler than a ghost. For what felt like the thousandth time that night, he changed over to the Show Stage camera. He was about to move on once more, the novelty of seeing his favourite characters once more after so many years lost after hearing just how serious this job was, before he noticed something was...off.

Didn't Freddy's band consist of three animatronics?

Suddenly, it clicked. It clicked faster than a speeding bullet.

A certain purple bunny was gone.

Bonnie had moved.

Bonnie was missing.

Bonnie was looking for him.

Mike's eyes widened, sheer terror causing him to shift through his camera feeds at an even faster rate, before quickly stopping at the Backstage camera. Empty plastic eyes stared back at him as Bonnie stood right in front of the camera.

Mike let loose a brief - but loud - scream before the camera feed abruptly cut out. Frantically, he tried the other cameras. All static. A few seconds later, they came back on, but Bonnie had left the Backstage area. Mike's eyes darted rapidly across the screen as he looked for Bonnie through each feed, soon stopping at the West Hall feed.

Bonnie was now a few meters away from Mike's office.

Mike was terrified. It was only 3AM, for God's sake! The flickering light straight above Bonnie's decrepit, purple head did not help in calming Mike down.

Mike had now simply taken to staring at Bonnie. He had very quickly figured out that the animatronics seemed to want to play a very morbid game of 'Red Light, Green Light' with him, and, well, he was more than happy to oblige if it meant he could walk out of here alive.

He didn't want to die to an angry group of fursuits.

However, it appeared that Bonnie didn't want to play fair. Once more he cut out Mike's camera feed, forcing him to alternate between checking the West Hall Corner and looking for Bonnie in the camera's blind spot. He didn't want to close the door just yet - he only had 36% of his power left.

He screamed out in horror as he was met with a vacant, hollow gaze upon turning on the West Hall Corner's light for the umpteenth time.

He did not hesitate to shut the door in the face of the seemingly homicidal purple rabbit this time, that's for sure.

An unnervingly organic sounding wheezing noise began to emanate from the other side of Mike's only line of defence in this hellhole as he heard something heavy begin to hit the metal door.

Slowly, with the door still closed, Mike clicked the light button once more. He peered through the window at Bonnie's forebodingly large shadow raising his large hand to smack Mike's door, draining him of power. By now, Mike's teeth had begun to tremble. He checked his watch rapidly, seeing that it was 4:23 AM. Still an hour and forty minutes of this crap. Damn.

With Bonnie temporarily occupied, Mike quickly moved on to checking some of the other cameras. As long as the thumping was audible, Bonnie was still at his door.

He checked the Show Stage once more, instantly noticing the alarming lack of a certain petite chicken alongside Freddy.

Mike bit his lip to stop a swear word from being blurted out and looked for her through the cameras. He stopped as he heard cluttering in the Kitchen area. Even though he wasn't able to see through the camera, he just knew that she was in there. Pots and pans didn't make that much noise from a slight breeze hitting them.

Finally, the pounding at Mike's door stopped. Mike looked off to the side and breathed a sigh of relief. He checked his power and panic instantly swelled up within him once more.

19%.

He had to last another hour and a half on 19% power.

'I thought this night was meant to be easy?!' Mike thought as he scrambled to open the door, not even checking his lights again for fear of using too much power in one go. He quickly came to regret that decision.

He opened the door to a pair of luminescent purple eyes as a bulky mechanical arm came surging out of the blackness towards him almost immediately.

Out of sheer reflexive action, Mike surged backwards, sinking into his chair and screaming as Bonnie's chunky arm merely skimmed his nose. Even that left Mike seeing stars. Bonnie once again tried to grab Mike from the darkness of the doorway, surging towards his shoulder in an attempt to force him out of his seat.

The adrenaline coursing through Mike's veins, as well as the disadvantageous position Bonnie had put himself in by having to lean forwards to grab Mike, allowed the 'helpless' security guard to deliver a fleeting kick to Bonnie's mask, staggering the animatronic slightly. Bonnie's jaw unhinged slightly, allowing Mike to see the disconcerting sight of the purple bunny's endoskeleton mouth sitting at the back of his throat.

Bonnie stumbled slightly further back into the darkness, his large feet supporting him enough to stop him from falling over. Mike, seeing the opportunity, quickly sat up and smacked the door button once more. Bonnie lunged, and Mike heard a heavy thud from the other side of the - now closed - door.

He heard a loud screeching noise, followed soon after by the heavy sound of metal hitting metal once more. Mike picked up his tablet, energetic and sweaty, just in time to watch Bonnie hurry back down the West Hall corridor and smack the door on the far end of the corridor open; apparently, he forgot to disable the camera whilst moving.

Mike smiled smugly to himself before remembering a very potent threat - Chica. He was so caught up in his brawl against Bonnie that he completely forgot to check on Chica. He now had to compromise by, once more, frantically checking his cameras for the small yellow chicken. He turned over to his East Hall camera, only to be met with a wide open beak and a wide-eyed blue stare as Chica was mere meters away from his door. Strangely, instead of panicking, Mike found himself pondering just why Chica, despite having no teeth - mostly due to a rather risqué redesign - had unnervingly uncanny looking endoskeleton teeth.

Suddenly, Phone Guy's words from earlier in the night came back to haunt him.

Despite the fan in the room, Mike was incredibly clammy and sweaty as he anxiously waited for either Chica or Bonnie to come clambering down the hallway once more. Strangely, Chica was staying put, the spring chicken seemingly fine with simply standing a relatively safe distance away from Mike. And he was fine with that.

Mike checked his watch once more.

5:48 AM.

Jesus, he had been waiting for that long?! He had to hand it to the animatronics; they certainly knew how to build up tension for a big dramatic finish. Mike was left wondering just when they'd put all that build-up to good use.

5:55 AM. Five minutes to go. Five minutes and he could go straight back home; back to his bug-infested bed.

Quite frankly, he would have slept on a bed of hot coals just to get a bit of shut-eye. He was just so...tired.

So tired, in fact, that he had completely missed the fact that he had forgot to turn off his tablet after using it to check up on Chica once again. He had 1% of his power left. Mike gasped in horror, panic rapidly swelling in his chest.

Chica was right outside. If the power went out, and he couldn't shut his doors at all...well. He didn't even want to think about it. His parents always told him that he had beautiful eyes, but Mike definitely didn't want to make them have to look at them being popped out the front of a Freddy mask.

Mike bit his nails as he waited with bated breath for the arrival of 6 AM.

5:56.

5:57.

5:58.

5:5-huh?

Mike started as a loud humming noise reverberated throughout the building and he was bathed in darkness.

His head darted up, looking at the door to his right with rapid, shallow breaths.

She could just walk in whenever the hell she liked.

But she didn't.

It was then that Mike heard a song that was oddly familiar to him - 'Toreador March'. A hauntingly memorable piece, no doubt, but why was he remembering it only now, with death looming over him?

Wait.

That wasn't in his head.

He slowly pivoted his head to the left, just enough to see a pair of glowing yellow eyes and teeth.

Mike resisted the urge to scream. This was not Bonnie. This one's eyes were green. It was also very, VERY tall. The eyes leered down at him from the very top of the doorway, flickering faintly in the darkness. Then, just as quickly as it had began, 'Toreador March' halted its haunting serenade and Mike was bathed in darkness once more.

After a few seconds, the very faint sound of - obviously purposely muffled - footsteps sounded; closer and closer they came. Mike could smell a putrid mixture of rot and rust, and he desperately wanted to gag. But he knew that doing so would get him killed even faster.

Then, like lightning, the eyes and teeth began glowing again - a foot or two away from his chair. He gazed up into the malicious, empty eyes of Freddy Fazbear himself as the enormous bear raised his arms to grab the helpless night guard, whom could only scream in pure terror as Freddy's open maw descended towards Mike's skull; his endoskeleton teeth shimmering slightly as they closed in.

He stopped.

Inches away from Mike's forehead.

Arms still outstretched.

Gaping maw still wide open.

Eyes now showing resentment and a severe lack of mercy.

But still, as if the bear were made of stone.

Then, slowly, very slowly, reluctantly, even, he began to straighten up once more, his arms lowering to rest his sides once more. His mouth closed once more.

Mike merely sat, lip quivering as a few small whimpers escaped his dry throat. Hesitantly, he checked his watch.

6:01 AM.

Mike looked up once more at the towering animatronic, whom was soon joined by Bonnie and Chica as they slowly entered the room. Freddy's face - his cold, calculating face - adopted a forced air of happiness about it, as did Bonnie's and Chica. His eyes un-narrowed, twitching slightly in an attempt to revert back to their devious look but failing.

His arm slowly raised, beginning to wave and also twitching slightly. His arm did not move, rather simply moving his grimy hand from side to side. He backed away from Mike's chair slightly as his mouth opened once more. He played a pre-recorded voice clip, stuttery and glitchy due to years of abandonment.

"T-Thanks-s fo-for com-coming to F-F-Freddy's Pizzzzeria, k-kid! It's-s b-b-been a ton of f-fun! S-See ya tom-m-morrow!"

Mike sat stock-still for only a few seconds before practically flying out of his seat and down the hall, not even thinking about looking behind him.

He bolted to the door - just as his employer, conveniently, unlocked it. Mike skidded to a stop in front of him, the wet floor having dried off by now. Only now did he hesitantly look behind him once more, half expecting to see Freddy thundering after him. Not an animatronic to be seen.

Mike's employer beamed at him with that strange smile of his.

"See? I told you it wouldn't be so bad!" He said, patting the exhausted night watchman on the shoulder.

"N-No you didn't." Mike muttered, still heavily shaken from what had transpired that day.

"Oh, didn't I? Huh. Well."

"L-Listen, uh, sir?" Mike said quietly, pleading to God that this would work.

"Hm? What is it?"

"Could I, maybe, erm, oh, I dunno, er, be moved to the day shift?" He asked, his facial expression not-so-silently begging the tall British man.

"Ooh, sorry, Mikey. We already have a day shift guy. If we needed another, we would have advertised it! Am I right?" He scoffed.

Mike's smile faltered slightly.

"R-Right. Er, could I maybe, just, er, resign, then?" Mike half-heartedly grinned, attempting to be as polite as possible.

"Ooh. Looks like someone didn't read the contract, hehe." The suited man said, fiddling with his shirt collar awkwardly. "Sorry, Mr. Schmidt, but you're legally inclined to work here for at least a week before you can resign. If, er, if you try to resign sooner than that, then I'm afraid you'll be going against the entirety of Fazbear Enterprises, and we'll be forced to take severe legal action. Now, I don't think either of us wants that."

He spoke cheerfully, but his eyes withheld a barely-concealed threat.

To say Mike was devastated was a severe understatement. But he remained silent. He knew he couldn't win a court case like that.

He simply smiled at his employer and slowly walked out of the building.

He was silently smiling as he got onto the bus.

He was silently smiling as he got off and made his way home.

He was silently smiling as he opened the door to his house.

He silently smiled as he crawled under his bed-sheets, face down, and began to scream into his pillow.

This was going to be a long week.


	2. A Fazbear-y Merry Christmas - Part 1

**A/N: So, I just realised that I got a few of the animatronics' eye colours wrong in the last chapter. I'm going to resolve Bonnie's, but I think I'm just going to roll with Freddy's. I think he looks better with green eyes than he does with blue. But hey, that's just me. If you don't like green-eyed Freddy, then just imagine him with his traditional blue eyes. I don't mind! Please enjoy, guys, and, most importantly…Merry Christmas. **

Mike didn't get any sleep that day; he was busy doing other things. Specifically, scouting out his battle-grounds.

He had arrived at Freddy's earlier than he had the night before - far earlier, in fact; 12:30PM, to be precise. He stopped outside the establishment that had now become his own personal torture chamber, looking up at it with far less child-like excitement and nervousness than he had felt last time.

He did, however, have to give some credit to the maintenance workers of the quaint little establishment, as the pizzeria was really looking good today.

It was, after all, Christmas. Instead of spending it with his family, however, Mike chose to get his bearings of the place for the night that faced him. He figured he would rather get to grips with the place that held murderous animatronics within its walls instead of spending the last few hours of his life moping during what was meant to be a jolly time of the year.

Man, was that a hard phone call to his mom and dad. He winced just thinking about it.

Nonetheless, he once again looked up at the bright yellow sign above the pizzeria's doors – he couldn't help but admire it.

The sign was now covered, ever-so-carefully, in festive lights and glowed brighter than it had the night before. _Far _brighter.

Beside the set of double doors was a cardboard cut-out of Freddy, the vicious twit himself, in Santa-esque attire, holding up a sign which proudly said, 'Have a Fazbear-y good Christmas!'

Mike chuckled slightly at the dreadful pun before taking a deep breath and walking through the doors that marked his demise, steeling his resolve.

He could never have prepared himself for the sight he saw before him. He found himself gawking, for Christ's sake!

Christmas trees lined the entrance hallway; they were all decorated exquisitely with beautiful lights that left Mike speechless. Shining, vivid tinsel of any colour one could conjure up in their mind's eye draped down from the ceiling, hiding the ugly, featureless steel wall behind it flawlessly.

At the end of the hallway was a door-less doorway.

Mike walked through hesitantly before barely catching himself from saying a _very rude _word.

He was met with a bright, colourful Party Room, the likes of which he had never seen from the quaint little pizza parlour before. He found that, even now, whilst undertaking a desperate attempt at saving his life in preparation for the following midnight, this place managed to bring out the child in him time and time again.

He found himself smiling broadly as he saw crowds upon crowds of excited children and tired, stressed adults having fun and enjoying themselves, in the throes of the grandiose Christmas-themed party.

Freddy and his gang, despite being stationary on the Show Stage, looked to also be having fun, oddly; despite being filth-ridden and emitting a rather foul odour, the three animatronics looked perfectly content with singing Christmas-centric songs with those vintage, glitchy voice-boxes of theirs to the writhing mass of kids.

Of course, that was just due to how they were designed. Robots couldn't feel emotions.

Right?

Veering away from this oddly grim train of thought, Mike found himself revelling in the sights the building had to offer, as well as the smell of fresh pizza. Of course, the pizza tasted like mouldy cardboard here, but nobody was here for _that_.

Even in Mike's childhood, both kids and adults alike came to the pizzeria purely to have fun with the iconic mascots of Freddy's.

Mike smiled, still standing by the doorway, as he dug up an endearing collection of childhood memories he had stored away in the back of his mind.

His first _real_ birthday, way back when he was 5 years old, had been spent at the humble pizzeria. In fact, most of his birthdays from then on had been spent at Freddy's; not that anybody in his family had complained. Well, except Uncle Steven. But Mike knew what he saw all that time back.

Hugging Freddy like he was best pals with him. Thought he wouldn't find out. Pssh.

If there was anything Mike was good at, it was finding out family secrets. After all, how else would he have been able to find out his sister was dating Todd, a renowned bully at the university she had enrolled in? She would never have told him. And she would never have let him tag along with her to their date if he hadn't blackmailed her with the prospect of telling their parents.

Man, was that an awkward three hours.

Still, Mike once again got in touch with reality, only to look back towards the Show Stage to see a certain brown-furred animatronic staring at _him _rather fixatedly. Mike's breath hitched in his throat as he heard a very deep British voice resonate across the room.

"H-H-Hey, kids! We ha-have a shy guy o-over at the b-back of the cr-crowd! L-Let's g-get him into t-the Christmassss s-spirit! Com-Come on up h-here, champ!"

Freddy was still staring, but now had raised his arm. He was beckoning Mike towards the stage with his sausage-like fingers.

_He wanted Mike to join him up there._

By now, the crowd had turned to him and began to usher him towards Freddy's taunting gaze. Mike couldn't stop staring at those haunting green eyes, progressively getting closer and closer to him as Freddy continued to smile that dreadful grin of his.

The ratty hunk of rust and decay didn't stop staring at him, even when he finally, reluctantly, climbed up onto the stage.

Freddy flashed his cylindrical teeth at him; despite being blunt and mottled with yellow, unsightly blotches, he managed to look nothing short of menacing. Of course, that may be due to how clear a view Mike got of the mouldy bear's glistening endoskeleton jaws from up close.

Flashbacks from the night before came back to him in one huge burst.

He resisted the urge to vomit.

However, as Mike continued to look at Freddy, the animatronic began to speak once again, causing Mike to jump out of his skin; metaphorically speaking, of course.

"S-So, Mr. N-Ni-Night Guard," Freddy began, waiting for Mike to recover before continuing, "A-Are you ready t-to sing a c-carol or two w-w-with me n' the g-gang?"

Freddy turned his body towards the rest of the band and outstretched his arm, silently asking Mike. His gaze still hadn't left the hapless man's face. Mike, however, could not bring himself to look at the animatronic any longer, and looked at where Freddy's hand was outstretched; Bonnie and Chica stood awaiting his decision.

Bonnie simply stood stock-still, staring at Mike in a similar manner to Freddy with those red eyes of his. Chica also gazed at Mike, albeit less mockingly, holding her signature cupcake up by her head whilst smiling kindly at him, despite her beak.

Looking into her kind purple eyes, Mike found himself, oddly, wanting to smile back. Something about the yellow chicken calmed him down somewhat, despite the events of the previous night.

Looking back to Freddy, he realised he was still staring at him soundlessly. Mike finally gathered his nerves and opened his mouth to speak. He was about to politely decline, but of course Freddy had to interject.

"Uh, sorry, but-"

"R-R-Really? Great! Th-then let'ss-s get started!" The animatronic yelled, wrapping his arm around Mike's shoulder. His eyes were, surprisingly, kind, but his grip was that of a vice. Even when Mike squirmed as much as humanly possible, he found himself unable to break free.

The smell of musk and rot was now funnelling directly into Mike nostrils, and he suddenly found himself wanting to gag. Nonetheless, he powered through as a unique, Freddy-fied rendition of 'It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year' began to fill his ears.

Soon, he found himself giving in to the temptation of singing along.

He was alarmed at how rapidly he was succumbing to the odd, charming air the animatronics had about them. He felt like he was 8 again, singing along gleefully with Freddy and the gang once more.

In fact, he had so much fun that he completely lost track of time. When Mike had finally burnt out the last of his energy, Freddy's arm still wrapped around him, he checked his watch.

His eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets as he read the time.

'7:30?!' Mike thought to himself, horrified at how distracted he had let himself get. It was things like that, little flaws in the human psyche, that might just help get him _killed _on tonight's shift. He couldn't let that happen.

He **wouldn't **let that happen. Not with so many aspects of life he had yet to experience.

Gently pushing Freddy's arm off him as the animatronic in question chuckled to himself, Mike was about to bolt out of the room. He still had 9 other rooms to scout out, after all. However, he was abruptly halted by a large, oddly warm paw grabbing his shoulder gently.

Mike reluctantly turned around once more, finally remembering that he was meant to **fear **the huge bear standing in front of him. Mike did not expect to see what he did upon turning around, however.

Freddy looked at Mike with more than a hint of sadness, and an air of betrayal seemed to be present on his furry features.

"L-L-Leaving allll-lready?" The 7-foot tall bear asked quietly, his green eyes shimmering slightly in the waning light. Mike could see himself in them. He could see how sad he looked to be leaving. Even in a life-threatening situation, Mike wanted to stay and have fun with his childhood friend. The same 'friend' that had tried to kill him the night before.

The same 'friend' that currently had faded, light-brown handprints on his face, akin to those of a child, smothered on his big brown face.

Mike felt another pang of…sympathy? For the bear, before opening his mouth to speak. He did not let Freddy interrupt him this time.

"Listen, Freddy, this has been a ton of fun, and I can't thank you enough for bringin' the kid in me out again after so many years of keeping it locked up. But, the thing is – and God knows if you're aware of this already – I'm doing this for my own good."

He began to mutter the rest to Freddy, so as not to alarm the substantially smaller crowd.

"You tried to kill me last night," He began, fixing Freddy with a hardened gaze. "And I'm not OK with that. I don't know if it's something that you do consciously or if it's something that you've never known about until now, but it's happening. That's the deal here." By this point, Mike began to get agitated, the stress of the previous night being too much for his 23 year old mind to process. He practically began to snarl at the group of robotic animals that stood before him as he continued. "Now, I'm gonna take a look around this polished turd of a building, and you're not gonna stop me, get it? If you know this place like the back of your filthy, flea-bitten fuckin' hand, then I think I should get a little chance to know this place a little better too.

Merry goddamn Christmas, Freddy."

He finished, staring daggers at the masochistic bear as he tipped his Security cap at him. If looks could kill, Mike would have murdered everybody in the room with that gaze alone. He rapidly turned on his heel and stormed towards a nearby set of double doors, deciding to be ruthless and waste no time rather than dilly-dally any longer.

He turned to look at the gang he had come to love so dearly one last time.

He resisted the urge to go back and apologise as he saw Freddy. The bear looked, for lack of a better term, _shattered_. Whether that was due to the news that had come about of him murdering people at night or due to how aggressively Mike's mood had changed over the course of no more than two minutes, he couldn't tell.

The room was bathed in a stunned silence.

A single choked, stuttery sob escaped the animatronic throat of the pizzeria's resident chicken. Her purple eyes no longer held kindness, but instead simply immense dejection.

Mike resisted the urge to sob himself.

He hadn't meant to be so harsh. His emotions got the better of him.

Funnily enough, that also appeared to be the case with the animatronics.

Mike saw Bonnie give him a disapproving glare as the purple bunny moved to console the – now wailing frantically – Chica. Freddy simply stood.

Staring in dismay.

Mike bottled up his guilt and finally managed to bring himself to enter the next room.

An hour or two of intense analysing of nearly every room later, and Mike found himself wandering cluelessly into the dark little closed-off hovel that was Pirate Cove. It _stank _of rot, and there were no decorations put up.

Mike supposed there wasn't much point in putting them up here, seeing as the entire room had been closed off. It wasn't like anybody would care, anyway.

Most of the kids here probably didn't even know Foxy existed by now.

Hesitantly, Mike slunk over to the purple, star-studded curtain that he once relished oh-so-dearly; now, ironically, he found himself praying to every God in heaven that Foxy wouldn't come bursting out from behind those curtains once more.

However, as those that knew him well would say, Mike had never been a particularly lucky man.

As he outstretched his hand to pull the curtain back, a thick metal hook clawed the purple material instead, yanking it back only slightly; enough so as to provide Mike with the, quite frankly, horrifying sight of a glowing yellow eye staring back at him from the darkness.

Mike leaped further back than he ever had before, screaming at the top of his lungs.

The eye narrowed at him, its owner obviously not being used to having intruders in its little fortress of solitude. A guttural, raspy voice sounded from behind the curtain, sounding more worn and mistreated than the others.

"W-W-W-W-Who goeesssss-s th-th-the-there?" The voice asked in the stereotypical accent one would usually associate with pirates. Mike replied, sounding like he himself had a broken voicebox due to how nervous he was.

"I-I, er, I'm M-Mike. Mike Schmidt. I-I'm the new night guard here."

The eye visibly widened slightly before reverting back to its previous aggressive state.

"A-A-And wh-why, oh why, sh-sh-sh-should I-I bel-lieve ye?"

As the voice spoke, Mike could see yellow glinting just below the eye.

"W-Well, I guess you c-could ask my employer, heh," Mike joked nervously, frantically wringing his hands. "H-He seems to know what's going on around here."

"W-W-We don'ttt normall-lly get night guaaaarrrdsss round' here. An-Any we do g-get don't la-las-last too l-long befer th-they start be-beggin' ta leav-leave." The voice stated manner-of-factly before chuckling heartily, stuttering heavily as it did.

"Yeah, I'll say." Mike muttered to himself.

There was a tense silence between the two for a few seconds, before the hook stretched further outwards, opening the curtain fully.

Mike couldn't help but gasp slightly.

It was Foxy, alright; but not how Mike remembered him. The animatronic fox was littered with gaping holes and dark blotches of fur, and many of his gold teeth had been yanked out of his mouth. Whether by staff or by thieves, Mike would never know.

The pirate held Mike in a scrutinising gaze for a minute or so, simply looking down at him with contempt; letting Mike take in what had been done to him. How **hollow **he had become.

How truly animatronic the fox now was.

Mike wanted to cry. His idol, Foxy the pirate, sea-travelling debonair, the main focus of his school speech about heroes, was in tatters. Literally. He did not look like a hero any longer; he was ruined. He even looked more bitter and resentful than Mike remembered.

The pirate had no more thrilling stories to tell to kids, no more whimsical tales of mischief and sea monsters. He had nothing. Even his chest, the location Mike had always suspected his heart of gold had been, was torn up and mangled.

Just an empty endoskeleton could be seen through the hole. It was as if the animatronic had lost his soul.

The freckled snout of the lanky fox opened slightly, baring its maw to Mike in distaste. He began to growl; quietly at first, before rapidly increasing in volume to the point where Mike was certain people in the room next to the Cove could hear it clearly, despite the closed doors.

Foxy raised his hook hand aggressively, roaring contemptuously as he began to limp towards Mike, having trouble supporting his weight once more after spending so much time deactivated. His eyes conveyed nothing but disdain.

"S-S-Stop…LOOKI-IN' AT M-M-ME!" The fox snarled, leaning on the wall with his exposed endoskeleton hand whilst waving his hook around violently at Mike.

Mike didn't know what to think. He didn't understand. He could only bumble about cluelessly, wide-eyed and alarmed.

"G-G-GET OOOOooooOU-UT!" Foxy roared derisively, pushing himself off the wall in order to attempt to charge at Mike.

Mike could only scream, bolting towards the door on the right and bursting through it. He firmly shut it behind him as he heard Foxy's heavy footfalls come to an abrupt stop right in front of the door.

Mike listened.

The aged pirate began to grumble wearily, the sound of his gravelly, stuttery voice beginning to fade.

Mike could only breathe a sigh of relief, releasing a breath he didn't know he had been holding. Mike only heard one more thing from the other side of the door;

"S-S-See ya t-t'nigh-ght, 'M-Mike'."


	3. A Fazbear-y Merry Christmas - Part 2

Mike's watch read 11:53AM as he got off of the evening bus once more, slowly looking up at the source of all of his misery these past two days; Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. The sign atop the building had been shut off, no longer glowing comfortingly for all to see.

Mike decided it would be best to avoid wasting any further time, pushing the front doors open slowly. The prospect of dying gnawed at him – even with all of his surveillance and scouting of the area, Foxy's muffled threat frayed his nerves.

He didn't want to know what the pirate would do with that rather sharp hook hand of his should he manage to get into his office.

As the pristine set of double doors – the one thing that separated him from the outside world besides a murderous band of animatronics – shut with an air of finality that jarred Mike out of his reverie, the young man couldn't help but gulp rather audibly. It was really **all** he could bring himself to do in that situation.

It was either that or run right back out into the night, screaming wildly. It would be so easy, but Mike would rather face Freddy and his 'merry' band than force his parents into a grim life of bankruptcy akin to his own due to him not reading the fine-print of a contract.

He wouldn't let his family face the consequences of his own stupidity. He would never be able to live with himself if he brought his mom and dad into all of this.

With that in mind, Mike gained a newfound determination to survive; primal survival instincts merged with the love he held for his parents pushed both his brain and his body into overdrive, attempting to conjure up some sort of plan in an attempt to have things go far smoother than they had yesterday.

He **was **going to survive this whole ordeal.

Foxy be damned.

Mike noticed his employer walking out of the room he had just passed as he looked behind him briefly. The mysterious Brit was dressed rather strangely compared to how he had looked the night before: aristocratic, refined and suave.

Today, however, he appeared to have arrived straight from the loony bin.

He was dressed entirely in a rather odd get-up, even if one bore in mind the fact that it was most likely some sort of strange Christmas outfit.

His face was adorned in white makeup and shone, granting him the appearance of an egg. His cheeks were smothered with blush which glowed a vibrant red amidst the blank whiteness of the rest of his face. He had smeared purple makeup all the way down his face, beginning at his eyes and ending at his mouth.

What really took the biscuit, however, was how he had carefully coated only the middle of his mouth in lipstick, the sides upturned in an oddly unnerving grin. Mike wondered in what world the man's 'costume' could be considered a good Christmas outfit.

An elf would have been just fine. Sexually-confused mimes, however, in Mike's opinion, were out of the question. He just hoped the man hadn't paraded himself around the pizzeria looking like that during the day, too.

He hadn't seen him whilst on his little scouting mission earlier, in any case.

His employer, naturally, walked in an odd, ballet-dancer-esque fashion towards Mike, performing delicate twirls and stretching his legs abnormally far out in front of him as he did. Once he finally reached him, it was 11:55AM.

Mike raised a questioning eyebrow at him as he reached him.

"Ah, Mike," The enigmatic man began, grinning from ear to ear, "Merry Christmas! Ho, ho, ho! Er, well, merry…" He trailed off, checking his watch briefly. "5 minutes left of Christmas, anyway. Heh. So, you like my getup?" He asked, gesturing at himself.

"I did it all myself this morning; tougher than I thought it would be, I tell you." He continued before chuckling at some inconspicuous joke that Mike, apparently, wasn't aware of.

"It's all in the name of Christmas!"

Mike simply listened, still not exactly finished with his wondering pertaining to his employer's incentive behind the, frankly, rather horrifying outfit. He decided to ask, as delicately as he dared.

"I, er, I see. Um, sir, if you don't mind me asking, what exactly…_is it_?" Mike questioned, lightly gesturing at the British man's listening face.

"Ha! I was wondering when you'd ask that!" The man beamed. He straightened his posture, proudly lifting his head to look at the ceiling. "Well, I based it on my favourite animatronic out of the bunch! I really do aspire to make it one of the members of Freddy's band. It deserves more recognition, I think.

Of course, management thinks it'll scare the kids. Pssh. Anyway, I must be going, Mike. I have a Christmas party to attend! Just remember: listen to what your superiors have to say, and never touch Freddy! They may not have told you before, but he doesn't like human contact. He's a little sensitive to that kind of thing. Toodle-pip!"

He began to wave at Mike. Mike waved back.

However, as Mike blinked, he opened his eyes to find his employer, just like the night before, apparently transforming into thin air. Mike was even _more _startled than he had been yesterday; yesterday the bloody Brit hadn't disappeared in the LITERAL blink of an eye, after all!

Mike was adamant that he hadn't drunk any curdled milk today, too.

Nonetheless, he shakily made his way to the office, still pondering just _how _what his employer managed to do, two nights in a row without fail, was possible.

Was he delusional?

Simply a mad-man conjuring up mental images of non-existent British people for reassurance?

Because if so, he was **very **bad at it. At least, he was when it came to the 'reassuring' part.

Mike entered his office, opting to take the long way rather than cutting through Pirate's Cove once more – he didn't want to risk another run-in with Foxy so early on in the night, especially since his last encounter turned out the way it did – and reluctantly sat down in his leather-coated coffin once more, the chair creaking slightly under his weight.

He looked to his desk and noticed his night guard attire, placed neatly on the steel worktop for him to find. Pushing the complimentary company soda that had been sitting on the table since the previous night aside, he grabbed the clothing and quickly put it on, still sitting down. He checked his watch.

Just in the nick of time. 12:00AM.

Speaking of good timing, the brick phone, once again, began its droning ring, drilling through Mike's skull and irritating him to no end.

Subconsciously, though, he knew that he would have to listen intently if he wanted to survive the night; so he waited.

And waited.

Then waited some more.

Finally, after roughly a minute of tense waiting, the ringing stopped.

The same voice as that of the previous night filtered through the phone, greeting Mike and beginning to speak.

Mike pulled up his tablet, taking in every word. He had decided to bring lunch with him tonight, in the vain hope that the animatronics would, like the night before, take their sweet time in getting to him. He took a large bite out of his ham sandwich, relishing the taste of his mother's food. She had insisted on making his lunch for him while he worked there, and Mike was eternally grateful.

Despite this, Mike still found himself nearly choking on his sandwich as he checked the Show Stage camera.

**They were all gone.**

**It was only 12:02AM.**

A bitter, frightened sob escaped Mike's throat as he scrambled through the feeds, barely able to swallow his mouthful of sandwich before letting out a pathetic whimper. He stopped upon checking the West Hall Corner's camera.

Bonnie was standing right outside his door.

At 12:02AM.

Mike desperately wanted to give in to the temptation of crying, but he knew that would likely get him killed. He still hadn't found Freddy yet, after all.

He shut the left door without even checking the lights. He didn't want to have to stare into Bonnie's blank red eyes for any longer than he _had _to.

His priority instantly became Freddy as Mike frantically scoured his camera feed for the mangy old bear, instead finding Chica once again standing in the East Hall. If her actions from the night before were anything to go by, she would wait a while before attempting to make any sort of notably aggressive action.

Of course, that was merely an assumption, but it was one that Mike was vouching on for dear life.

He sifted through the feeds once more, choosing not to shut his right door just yet; Bonnie was already leeching enough power off of him as things were. The stupid phone guy didn't know how to shut the hell up, either. The clueless bastard just _kept on nattering_ about, quite frankly, utterly **useless **topics.

Honestly, Mike would have been fine with Freddy targeting HIM for once. Maybe then he wouldn't be so goddamn casual about everything whilst Mike was fighting for his life. Hell, the bear might as well just stuff him in a suit! He offered up about as much information to Mike as a corpse would, anyway.

He would _like _to see him go.

Stopping his train of thought there, Mike began to worry for his mental health. What was he talking about? That phone guy, that same anonymous voice on the phone of whom he wished death upon only _seconds _earlier, had saved his life by warning him of the animatronics' homicidal tendencies yesterday. He didn't deserve death; especially not death by Freddy. Hell, Mike wouldn't even wish that upon the worst person on Earth.

Nobody deserved to die in the stinking, dingy hellhole that Freddy's had become.

Mike switched to the Dining Area/Party Room camera for what had felt like the hundredth time that night, before doing a double-take and gasping. He looked up from his tablet to check on Chica's progress in the hall; she wasn't at his door yet. Good. He looked back down at his tablet, only to find that what he had seen was gone.

'Where the HELL did Freddy go?!'

On a hunch, Mike switched over to the Kitchen camera. Despite the video feed in the room being deactivated, he could clearly hear 'Toreador March' playing through the camera. Hell, he didn't even need to use his tablet to hear it. If he strained his ears, he could faintly hear it playing.

'Got you now, you furry demon.' Mike thought to himself victoriously, proud of his accomplishment. Once again, he checked on Chica. He squinted slightly, suspicion clouding his senses.

Hadn't Chica been a little further away from the camera last time? He could have sworn she had been.

Nonetheless, she still wasn't close enough to him to make Mike willing to risk losing too much power to make it through the rest of the night by shutting the door prematurely. He ignored the cold shiver his nerves sent down his arm, convincing him to smack the button and ensure his safety, for a little while longer.

At least, he believed the source of his shivering to be his nerves.

Bonnie was still right outside his door. Apparently, he was trying to wait out the clock.

Mike gritted his teeth agitatedly, switching back to the Kitchen camera. If Bonnie wanted to start playing games, then Mike would play some of his own. He checked to make sure Freddy was still in the Kitchen before turning off the tablet temporarily.

He smirked, a vengeful glint in his eye.

_Oh, yes. Mike would play some games of his own, alright._

He hovered his hand over the left door's light switch, peeking off to the right in an attempt at catching Chica trying to get in. Nothing, thankfully. Smirking once more, he turned back to the left door, his hand still hovering over the square-shaped button.

Mike counted down from five in his head before relentlessly smacking the button. Mike quickly looked through the window just ahead of the door, bearing gleeful witness to the strobe light he had just created outside of his office.

He sniggered, watching Bonnie's shadow on the wall jump back slightly, startled, before quickly becoming affected by the rapidly altering level of light. The rabbit began to paw at his eyes frantically, his aged optic processors not being able to handle the bright, rapidly-flickering white light.

After around half a minute, Mike heard the animatronic let out a strangled scream before watching it rapidly turn away from the door – away from the light – and sprint back down the hallway, ears bobbing.

Mike laughed to himself triumphantly, grinning impishly as he opened the left door once again. Thank _God _that had worked.

Even so, he winced upon checking his power with his tablet. He was already at 84%, and it was only 12:45AM. This was **not **looking good. He would have no choice but to cut down on his power usage drastically or the animatronics would be having a _red _Christmas; he did not want that. Not at all.

He checked the East Hall Corner once more and screamed louder than he was certain he ever had before. Both Freddy and Chica were staring up at him from the corner, Freddy leading the charge.

Mike lowered his tablet as quickly as he could, turning to his right. His arm flew towards the large red button beside the door, Mike unwilling to waste any time checking his lights.

An enormous, brown, four-fingered hand shot out like a bullet from the inky blackness, providing an impenetrable cover over the button as Mike's hand hit greasy matted fur. Freddy was playing dirty.

Mike simply stared for a few seconds, mouth agape in horror, before slowly looking up. His eyes met a pair of glowing yellow orbs. Mike could not even bring himself to scream. His lips merely quivered in dread.

He knew _exactly _what was coming next.

He was going to die. Freddy was going to merrily prance right on in, and he would yank Mike out of his chair like he was some sort of pathetic action figure, and maybe Chica would help, but he wouldn't mind, since she seemed to have this weird calming effect about her as of late, but then maybe Bonnie or Foxy would come along, too, and he wouldn't want that, and then he was going to get **stuffed**, and then-

Wait.

Freddy had walked in, of course, ignoring Mike's whimpering pleas for mercy, but had simply begun to stand in front of him motionlessly. Was it 6:00AM already?! Mike checked his watch to make sure.

1:04AM. Ok, so _that's_ out of the question. But then…what was going on?

Freddy was quickly joined by Chica as he continued to block the door button, granting her access into Mike's office. Only when the yellow chicken entered did Freddy slowly lift his hand off, finally allowing Mike to seal the door shut. Of course, it was a little late for that now.

Mike sank back in his chair, staring at the duo with a vacant gaze akin to that of a thousand-yard stare. He had shallowly come to accept his irrefutable demise, albeit rather reluctantly. Of course, his body continued quivering nonetheless.

For a second or two, Freddy stared at Mike; his gaze held a strangely unidentifiable mixture of 'emotions' within it as he bore into Mike's very soul.

Then, without warning, Freddy raised his right arm and waggled his fingers at the left door, making a beckoning kind of motion with his hand. He continued staring at Mike as the man in question could do nothing but stare back in turn, clueless of Freddy's motives.

Where Freddy beckoned, out of the darkness shuffled Bonnie, looking over his shoulder at the light button fearfully as he stood to the left of Freddy. He fixed Mike with a rather bitter glare, crossing his arms frustratedly.

_Apparently, animatronic bunnies could hold grudges._

Freddy ignored Bonnie's childlike antics as he finally assumed a static position once more, both arms down by his sides. Then he did something Mike could _never _have expected.

Freddy began to play a little jingle; it wasn't Toreador March, it was…

Silent Night? The slow song seemed to soothe both Bonnie and Chica as they began to gently sway from side to side whilst it played.

Mike couldn't help but, quietly as he dared, begin to sing along as Freddy continued to play it. After the full song had finished, and Mike had sworn he could hear other voices singing along with him, even quieter than his, Freddy, once more, stood stock-still, his glowing yellow eyes blinking at a steady pace.

The sharply-dressed bear opened his mouth to speak as the deep British voice that Mike had come to dread resonated throughout the small room.

"L-L-Listen, M-Mr. Ni-Night Guard. I-I've be-been thinking – a-about wha-what you said. Th-Thi-This morn-ning, I-I mean."

Mike could not find the words to describe his situation. He simply gawked at the towering bear, his mind completely blank.

"P-Person-Personally, I-I am appalled by-by what y-you to-told me; I-I fee-feel sick j-just thinking ab-about it." As he continued to speak, Freddy's facial expression began to change to one of extreme guilt. "I-I couldn't bel-believe i-it: w-we…we ki-kill pe-people. We-we _ha-have _kil-killed people-le before. T-The memo-memory surface-aced whi-while I was-s pefor-orming. O-Of ki-killing somebody-dy, I m-mean. I sti-still remember-er his na-name.

I-I c-can't contr-rol it. No-None of us can," He continued, gesturing to Bonnie and Chica, the former's expression softening noticeably upon Freddy's mention of their murders. "E-Even ri-right now, I ca-can't tell yo-you how muc-much willpowe-er it is ta-taking me ju-just to talk to y-you."

Mike began to wonder whether all of Freddy's stuttering was a result of his faulty voicebox or the arduous strain he was putting on himself just to be able _to _speak. He felt strangely sorry for the old bear. Nonetheless, he remained rooted in his seat, waiting for Freddy to finish.

"S-So-Sometimes…I-I hav-ve nigh-nightmares. Ba-bad ones. Bu-But, those are for m-me to wo-worry about. I-I've alr-ready ma-made you suff-ffer enough. Af-After all, I'm me-meant to be a bi-big boy now. I-It's what momma wou-ould have wanted." Freddy finished, his deep voice breaking slightly upon the mentioning of his apparent mother.

Bonnie and Chica's eyes widened at Freddy's apparently accidental confession, appearing to be just as surprised as Mike was at the bear's oddly sentimental words.

Freddy raised his arm, his arm outstretched towards Mike; he was silently asking Mike for a handshake.

"H-Ho-How about, si-since I-I-I don't thi-think I'll be a-able to keep thi-this up for mu-much longer tha-than a night o-or two, we-e jus-just start a-all over? My-My na-name is F-Freddy. Fre-Freddy Faz-zbear. Wh-What's your-rs?"

Mike simply stared at Freddy's open paw for a few seconds, thinking about whether or not he should take the bait. He figured that even if he didn't he would be killed, so he might as well go on his own terms. He mentally uttered a short prayer wishing prosperity upon his family before letting Freddy's large paw envelop his far smaller hand, gently shaking it.

"My n-name is Mike. Mike Schmidt." He muttered, flinching slightly at the feel of Freddy's greasy fur.

Chica let out an audible gasp, covering her beak with her hands.

Freddy looked to her questioningly, lowering a black eyelid to provide the others with the illusion of a raised eyebrow.

"W-Wh-What is it, Chi-Chica?"

"I-I rem-emember tha-at name! H-He's th-the An-nual Kid! 'Member?" The animatronic chicken breathed, pointing at the confused night guard; Mike's confusion was only amplified upon hearing both Freddy and Bonnie reply with gasps and wide-eyed stares of their own.

"Y-You've…co-come bac-ack?" Freddy asked Mike quietly, gazing at him in wonder.

"I-I…maybe? What's this about an 'Annual Kid'?!" Mike asked, utterly bewildered.

"Y-Ya came ba-back to us. Y-Year after ye-year. Yo-ou were su-such a sweet lil' un'." Chica replied, her Bostonian accent emphasizing every word. "B-But then, o-one year, ya didn't-n't show up. We-We thoug-ght ya ha-had gawn ferev-evah." She continued, fixing Mike with a careful look. She was inspecting him.

"R-Remembah 198-84?" She asked. Mike instantly knew what she was talking about.

"I…those kids," Mike began. "They were throwing trash at you guys."

The group of animals morosely nodded.

"Then-en gu-guess who com-mes along n' saves the da-ay?" Bonnie rhetorically questioned, his gruff voice now gravelly with wear-and-tear. "H-Heh. Yo-ou." He went on, smiling to himself.

"Well, I tried to, anyway. They just ended up giving me a wedgie." Mike said bitterly.

"Do-oesn't mean we di-didn't appreci-iate it, Mike." Freddy finished, placing a warm paw on Mike's shoulder. He hoisted the smaller man up before pulling him into an immense bear-hug (Quite literally). It was all Mike could do to attempt to avoid inhaling too much of his odour whilst being pressed right up against him.

Mike stood, shocked, for a mere few seconds. Then, without warning, he began to quietly sob. He embraced Freddy in return, giving him his own equivalent of a bear-hug; he tried valiantly, considering Freddy's waist was _far _wider than his, but he simply could not wrap his arms all the way around. It was the same with Bonnie, whom had finally decided to forgive Mike for his little lightshow.

Chica, however, was a little different.

Due to her little redesign, Mike could easily wrap his arms all the way around her waist, still blubbering like an idiot. He was just _so happy _to finally have the Freddy, Bonnie and Chica that _he knew_ – **his **gang – back after so many years. He felt like he had never left.

Mike rested his head on Chica's shoulder, seeing as she was the only animatronic in the group whom was around Mike's height, simply crying tears of bittersweet joy into her back. He knew this would probably be the last time he'd ever get to spend time with the animatronics he knew and loved, and God knew he was going to have fun whilst doing it.

Tears could be saved for later.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Mike raised his head from Chica's shoulder, sniffling as he smiled at her. She smiled back; well, tried to, what with her beak and all.

Freddy tapped Mike's shoulder. Smiling at him, he said, "Well, Mi-Mike, i-it's Chri-Christmas. O-Or, at least, it w-was. Ho-How about so-some post-Christmas celebrati-tions, just li-like old times, h-huh? H-How about it-it?"

Mike nodded eagerly, more than willing to let his inner-child run rampant, if only for one last night together with his oldest pals. Freddy flashed his mouldy teeth once more; this time, however, it was presented to Mike in the form of a joyful grin instead of a mocking smile.

Freddy gently held Mike by his armpits, picking him up and placing him on his hulking shoulders; Mike couldn't help but grin like an absolute moron. The wave of nostalgia that hit him upon being placed on the, now docile, bear's fur was **intense**.

Even Bonnie couldn't help but smile at the endearing sight.

For hours upon hours, Mike's shift was spent simply goofing off and playing with his lifetime friends once more. The sound of laughter and an aura of joy reverberated around the restaurant. More than once Freddy passed Pirate Cove whilst effortlessly carrying Mike around on his shoulders, but the giddy man simply couldn't care less. He was having the time of his life.

At least, that is, until a – now polished – hook once again clawed the curtain back; the purple material was pulled back all the way this time, however.

Freddy immediately came to a halt upon seeing this, as did Bonnie and Chica. Mike sat, clueless, for a few seconds, before looking at the curtain and tensing up.

There stood Foxy once more, staring at Mike with the same expression of contempt and annoyance as he had that morning. Freddy stood completely still, having some sort of stare-off with the pirate fox.

One might have believed the bear to be a statue of some sort at that very moment. He did not even blink. Then again, neither did Foxy.

Mike cowered behind Freddy's top hat, hoping the fox would just go back behind his curtain and leave them be.

Thankfully, Mike's luck was with him that night.

"Fr-Fre-Freddy." The pirate grunted, nodding briskly at the bear in question after what had felt like an age.

"F-Foxy. Oh, s-sorry, would y-you prefer 'B-Backstabber', or 'Trait-tor' in-instead?" Freddy replied venomously. There was something that Mike was definitely missing here.

Nonetheless, the pirate snarled at Freddy before slowly limping back behind his curtain.

"Y-Ye got l-l-lu-lucky this time, ni-ni-night gu-guard." Foxy growled, before pulling the purple curtain back out in front of him with an oddly graceful swipe of his long arm.

Mike hesitantly looked behind him, witnessing Bonnie slowly strapping his guitar onto his back once more and Chica lowering her signature cupcake. Why were they preparing for hostile action?

How much had Foxy changed while he had been gone?

Mike worriedly pondered all of this, but soon forgot about it as he continued to have fun with the other animatronics.

They did not enter Pirate Cove again that night.

Good thing too, otherwise they would have had another encounter with Foxy, whom had taken to leaning right on the other side of the curtain with his hook out in front of him; if Mike had set foot in the room again, Foxy would have been more than willing to rip something out of that oh-so-soft body of his.

It would have sliced **wonderfully.**

By the end of the night, Mike found himself wanting to spend even more time with the animatronics. Despite these unexpected emotions, he reluctantly said his supposedly last heartfelt goodbyes to the gang of three.

He shook hands with Freddy one last time, eyes watering, strummed an air guitar with Bonnie before giving him a brotherly handshake, and received an unexpected kiss to the cheek from Chica. It was made a little awkward due to her beak, but Mike still found himself blushing crimson.

Mike reached the set of double doors that were his only way out of the building once again, this time finding himself reluctant in opening them.

He looked back one last time, hoping to wave a final time at his friends. However, the trio was not there. Shocked, he looked at his watch.

_6:01AM. Motherf-_

Mike sighed, his face becoming solemn. He looked down the dark corridor, slowly brightening due the morning rays.

'_Merry Christmas, guys.'_

Mike tipped his cap once more – this time harbouring no foul intentions – before taking it off, as well as his body warmer, and hanging the uniform on the clothes hanger next to the doors.

He took a deep breath before opening the doors once more.

'_Just gotta make one more stop.'_ Mike thought to himself, hopping onto a 297 bus. He got off at a specific destination; he knew what he was looking for. Good thing he had some of his parent's money left over. He was saving the hundred dollar notes, but he figured this would be a better use for them than anything _he'd _had planned.

They deserved that much, at least; friends deserved anything and everything from one another, after all.

He entered the pizzeria once more at 7:34AM; he just needed to drop something off.

He walked past the Kitchen room's locked door, wondering just what secrets were contained in there. Nonetheless, he brought his items to their respective places and laid them there. He walked right back out.

Because of this, he didn't notice the pair of white, pin-prick eyes that watched him through a crack in the Kitchen door, nor the clawed black hand that pushed it slightly further open, but made no hostile move.

_And_ _ESPECIALLY not the music box-esque version of Fiona Apple's rendition of 'Pure Imagination' that played slowly from the darkened room._

**8:00AM.** The beginning of the Freddy gang's work day. As the animatronics booted up once more, both exhausted and giddy from their single, self-aware night shared with a good friend, they expected the day to go as they usually did after Christmas; relatively smoothly, considering most people would be recuperating from Christmas parties and the like.

However, as they booted up, heads angled downwards, they did _not _expect to find a trio of beautifully wrapped, tiny boxes. **Presents.** Freddy was the first to notice. He squealed with child-like wonder and joy as he picked it up, ever-so-carefully.

As Bonnie and Chica, curious about Freddy's outburst, inspected their presents with glee, Freddy lifted his in front of his face, reading the neatly-written note on the side.

'_Dear Freddy,_

_This one's for you, bro. I can't thank you enough for the incredible Christmas you guys gave me; it was the best night of my life. Even if it was a little late, it was the best 'party' I've ever had the pleasure of attending. Don't tell my mom I said that, though! Even if you kill me tomorrow, I'll die happy knowing you were…yourself when you got this. My parents'll kill me if they find out how much of their money I spent on these, so use them well, alright? Heh._

_Merry Belated Christmas, buddy.'_

His curiosity heightened to insatiable levels, Freddy eagerly unwrapped the gift.

He, along with Bonnie and Chica, let out a happy sob at what awaited him inside the present.

It was a pristine, stainless silver voicebox labelled 'To Freddy'.

The present that sat outside Pirate Cove's purple, starry curtain, however, remained untouched for the entirety of the day.

**A/N: Hey, guys! Me again. Did you like this chapter? I was going for something less horrific and more…'feels'-y with this Christmas special. Y'know, something to give you a lovely warm feeling on the inside in order to prepare you for this wonderful time of year. So, what do you guys think of Grinch Foxy? What do you hope will happen in future nights? Do you think Freddy and Mike will resolve their differences ultimately, and become best pals again? Who knows but me? *Twiddles moustache mischeviously***

**But yeah, I hope you enjoyed this little Christmas special that I just about managed to complete in time, and, once again…**

**Have a very merry Christmas, as well as a wonderfully happy New Year. **


	4. Behind the Curtain Lies a Beast

The Sun rose over the horizon once more as a begrudging Mike wallowed in self-pity under his dusty bed sheets, mentally lamenting about how unfortunate he was. To put it simply, he wasn't looking forward to the night that awaited him. Then again, not many would, if they were in his shoes. He did have a job at Freddy's, after all.

And this time, Mike suspected, his luck would not win out on him.

Besides, he couldn't rely on the animatronics having a sudden change of heart twice in a row. Tonight he had an inkling that he would be on his own.

Mike was rather frightened; he was barely half-way through his week and already he had come alarmingly close to death twice in a row.

Mike simply hoped that the third time would _not _be the charm. Even his first close shave had been one too many for his tastes.

He found himself shuddering, despite his sheets, as he recalled his first encounter with what he had now dubbed as 'Anti-Freddy'. He had barely missed out on losing part of his face that night. He could still feel the bear's putridly warm…'breath'…hitting his face whenever he fell asleep, however rarely.

Chills ran through the young night watchman's body. He checked the small clock beside his bed, his body still coated in a slick sheen of sweat due to a nightmare he had been having before he had awoken; the nightmare he had been having since he had managed to coax himself into falling asleep after returning home from his first night. He thought back on it after seeing the hands of his alarm clock hit 9:04AM.

In the dream, he would be in the pizzeria. It would be dark. It would _always _be dark. He was never able to rise from his chair, simply being held there by some unforeseen force. The tablet, the very same tablet that he had dreaded having to hold once more, would simply float up to him from his desk – his arms were also unable to move.

It would turn on by itself, automatically flicking over to the Party Room. Mike, no matter how hard he'd try, would never be able to look away from the tablet or even close his eyes. They would begin to sting after a while. His parents, friends and other people that he cared about would be strapped to the chairs in the extensive room, sitting around the large tables.

The camera would flicker. It would be exactly the same every time. Once the camera stopped flickering, Freddy, Bonnie and Chica would all be there. Just staring at him through the camera. He was able to hear his family and friend's muffled screams through the duct tape on their mouths.

Every.

Single.

Time.

Then, after about a minute of Mike frantically begging and screaming at the dead-eyed animatronics to let his loved ones go, the cameras would – once again – cut out. The screams would stop abruptly. After mere seconds of static, the camera would once again turn on.

Every single time, Mike would be faced with an armada of bloodied Freddy, Bonnie and Chica suits, replacing his family and friends at the table. Except they were no longer strapped to their chairs; they, too, joined their 'creators' in staring back at Mike as he could do nothing but scream and cry.

They would begin to walk out of the room, one by one, without even cutting the camera feed. They would simply crane their broken, crooked necks towards the doorway just out of the camera's visual range and walk out without hesitation.

Mike would find the burning in his eyes dying down due to his tears moisturising them as he watched the miniature army march towards him, their metal feet singing a chorus of death as they stomped down the long hallways that made up the route towards Mike's office.

Then, as the group of Bonnies paraded emotionlessly down the West Hall, and the Freddys and Chicas stomped through the Kitchen, Mike would hear the irregular pitter-pattering of far lighter, more metallic footsteps.

The tablet would automatically switch over to the West Hall camera as the Bonnies neared the corner leading into his office. Right before the leading Bonnie would reach him, however, the doors on the far end of the hall would practically fly off of their hinges as an orange screeching blur rocketed through them.

Sparks would fly from the Bonnies as the blur sliced through them mercilessly, leaving large open gashes across the bodies of the purple bunnies. Every time, they would move to stop it, but it would simply be _too quick._

After the streak of orange had finished with the Bonnies, now strewn across the floor of the hallway in a tangled mess of purple, it would dart into Mike's office. Mike would barely be able to scream in pure, unadulterated horror as a hook, gleaming, even in the low light, went from being raised above his rapid assailant's head to slicing through his skull in the blink of an eye.

It would be at that point that Mike would wake up, cold, breathing heavily and covered in sweat.

And he could _never _change the outcome.

_No matter how hard he tried._

Finally brushing his grim thoughts aside temporarily, however, Mike unenthusiastically clambered out of the warm comfort his bed offered him and headed into his bathroom. He gazed deeply into the mirror opposite him, the yellow walls of the room now a putrid urine colour due to years of being worn away.

He looked into the mirror, but did not find himself.

No. No, that couldn't be him. Not after just two nights. No.

A monster gazed back at him from the other side of the reflective surface.

His nose, most notably, still reminded Mike of why he should _always _check his light before opening the door at that damn pizzeria; the large cut he had received from Bonnie's tubby finger merely _skimming_ the bridge of his nose still lurked there, bright red. He had managed to dry all of the blood off on his shirt on the night, but he had no idea what to do about the brown, scab-like 'wall' that seemed to only help in drawing attention to the wound.

He seemed to have no choice but to simply let it fester and heal. He could only hope that it wouldn't result in anything serious or life-changing. Then again, that was the _least _of his worries.

Mike's tired eyes now seemed to be further emphasised due to him obtaining rather noticeable bags underneath them as a result of the irregular sleeping patterns that he had developed out of fear of both Freddy's and his nightmare.

His short stubble felt pricklier; more brittle to the touch.

Mike stared hard into the blue eyes that now seemed oh-so-alien to him for many a minute.

All time simply spent looking at the worn, frayed shell of a man that he had become; at how drastically he had changed over the course of **two nights.** He felt as if he was taking part in one of those sleep deprivation tests that mad scientists used to conduct on people. It felt as if…he wasn't himself any more.

Oh, God.

He…

**He and Foxy were alike.**

They were both suffering in an eerily similar manner to one another, Mike realised. He was becoming something he _did not want to be._ He didn't want to become hollow. He didn't want to be Foxy. Even if Mike somehow managed to survive his week, he dreaded the changes that the restaurant would inflict on his psyche.

Mike looked down, toward his rusty, filth-coated sink, in despair. He shut his eyes, grimacing as a wave of intense nausea washed over him.

He would _not _become Foxy.

He would _not _let Freddy's break him. He wouldn't let old friends shatter his resolve. Not now, not ever.

He looked up once more, meeting the eyes of his reflection. He bared his teeth at the discouraging image, snarling determinedly. The reflection, naturally, snarled back.

"I'm not gonna let you break me, Freddy. I swear it." Mike uttered, his fist clenched tightly.

He underwent his early morning routine as per usual after his oddly courageous vow, once again arriving at the forsaken restaurant earlier than he should have. He just wanted to speak with the animatronics whilst they were still…themselves.

He checked his watch, reading 2:47PM, before taking a deep breath and entering the pizzeria. He did not stop to admire the sign this time, still glowing strong. He simply willed himself to walk inside, staring straight ahead. His footsteps echoed around the corridor as he heard the faint laughter of children emanating from the far end.

There were no decorations strewn over the grotty grey walks this time – not a single strand of tinsel to be seen. If Freddy's had _anything_ going for it, Mike had to admit, it was how quickly the maintenance here worked. A brief thought flickered in his mind of the animatronics doing it.

He quickly passed it off as preposterous.

Then again, if they could stuff a human being into a robotic suit that obviously wasn't _built_ for one, they could probably put away a few miniature Christmas trees.

As he reached the doorway into the Party Room, Mike's eyes went directly to the stage. His tired eyes focused entirely onto the big brown face that he had both come to love and detest as Freddy obliviously continued singing songs to the little crowd of children and adults, his deep voice reverberating around the large room. He was not stuttering anymore.

It seemed he had received Mike's present after all.

The bear seemed strangely happy. Gleeful, even. Mike didn't question that observation as much as he would have the day before – he knew now that the animatronics could emote just fine.

His impromptu Christmas at Freddy's taught him _that_ rather well.

Besides, overcoming an immense stuttering problem would probably be something that Mike would be rather happy about too; especially if he was expected to sing with that stutter day after day without any sign of therapy or treatment of any kind in sight.

However, relieved as Mike was, he wanted to have a little chat with the animatronics. At least, that is, before they tried to _kill _him. Thus, he waited for their work day to finish, simply leaning on the far wall, watching the animatronics perform.

He checked his watch as it read 9:53PM. About bloomin' time. He'd been waiting AGES. But he needed closure. He needed a proper goodbye.

He waited until 10:20PM, whereupon all the adults and children had left the pizzeria, the lights had been shut off and the animatronics were concealed behind a thick red curtain as they now sat limply, simply waiting to activate against their own will.

He greeted the janitor as he walked in. He was a fairly aged man, but he was a pretty cool guy. He knew about the animatronics'…habits, and would fix Mike with a sympathetic gaze whenever their eyes met. He made for good conversation, though, whilst he mopped the pizzeria over the course of the meagre 2 hours he had to do so each night.

He didn't even take a second glance behind him as he witnessed Mike climbing onto the stage. He'd noticed him watching the animatronics earlier, figuring he needed to confer with them.

He'd spoke to the trio of multi-coloured animals himself, after all. He knew that they weren't just ordinary robots.

They were the ones that told him to steer clear of the Kitchen, after all; he had yet to thank them.

He always felt like something was watching him in there. Maybe it was just that box in the corner. In any case, he could now hear weird nursery rhymes playing from behind that set of double doors every time he passed them. He hadn't cleaned the little room in _months._

As Mike cautiously approached the animatronics, he couldn't help but feel a pang of anxiety. What if they activated and instantly reverted to their night mode? Convincing himself to ignore that disconcerting thought, he quietly began muttering Freddy's name, attempting to coax him out of his shutdown mode.

He gently tapped the side of the bear's face, his finger sinking into the unkempt fur.

Slowly, black eyelids lifted to reveal a pair of green irises. They rapidly focused on Mike as he began to speak to the slowly booting up bear.

"Freddy? Freddy, it's me. Mike?" Mike said, gesturing at himself when saying his own name. The bear lifted his head to look at the night guard, suddenly seeming to be far friendlier. The animatronic's large shoulders sagged and he generally seemed to loosen up. Still seated, he waved at Mike in a social manner.

"Mike!" Freddy greeted. "Wait. What are you doing here? Aren't you meant to be in your office?!" Freddy asked, suddenly becoming distressed. "I could kill you if you stay here for too long! I-"

He was shushed abruptly by Mike smiling at him, simply holding his watch up to Freddy's face and tapping it lightly. Oh. It was only 10:26. Well. Freddy became slightly flustered, awkwardly looking around as Mike chuckled.

Freddy then became curious; Mike would only be here this early if he were looking for something or trying to find something _out_. He once again lowered one of his black eyelids in an attempt at looking questioning as his thick eyebrows remained unmoving.

"So, what exactly are you doing here this early, Mike?" The large bear rumbled, sitting up slightly straighter. Mike crossed his arms, looking at Freddy with a raised eyebrow of his own as well as a knowing smirk.

"Well, I was just lookin' around a little more, getting to know the place, so on." Mike began, creating a little pyramid shape with his hands as he both slowly and deliberately paced back and forth in front of Freddy, looking at him confidently the whole time.

"Really? I don't think lurking around at the back of the room counts as 'getting to know the place'." Freddy quickly rebutted, wearing a smirk of his own.

Mike's smile dropped. _Wha-? F-Freddy hadn't looked at him once the whole time he'd been there!_

Oh, this bear. He was **good.**

"H-How'd you see me?! I was right at the back of the room!" Mike frantically queried, spluttering in surprise. Freddy simply tapped his nose twice with the index finger on his right hand, still retaining his stupidly smug grin.

"The bear knows all, Mike." Freddy replied simply, his hydraulic ears twitching slightly.

"Overconfident jackass." Mike uttered, arms crossed as he stared at Freddy in annoyance. Freddy merely chuckled, sounding much more natural and fluent now than it had the day before. Speaking of which, now came the real reason for him wanting to talk.

"So, Freddy…" Mike began gently, his expression softening. "Could you, maybe, wake up Bonnie and Chica? I, er, I want to know how you're all finding your…'gifts'."

Mike made air-quotes with his fingers as he said the word 'gifts'. Freddy simply nodded at him, nudging the animatronic chicken beside him. Her black eyelids lifted groggily, looking at Freddy for a second or two as he muttered to her to 'wake up' Bonnie. She seemed to be saddened by the request.

"Wha…i-it's already 12AM?" Chica muttered, her eyelids tilting in concern as her purple eyes stared at the enormous bear beside her. Mike began to suspect that the chicken's new beak was made out of some sort of rubber or something, as he began to see the corners of it tilt downwards noticeably in an obvious display of sadness.

"No, no, no, no! Don't worry!" Freddy frantically replied, raising his hands as he attempted to calm the rather depressed looking yellow chicken. Chica pensively raised a hand to the underside of her beak at this, resting it on her knee as she looked at her lifelong friend.

"So…why'd ya wake me then?" Chica pressed, narrowing her pretty eyes almost imperceptively; it was very hard to notice the movement of two streaks of black in a darkened environment, after all. Freddy simply smiled before nodding his head off to Chica's right, his small top hat bobbing slightly on his large head.

Chica followed his little nod before her eyes rested on Mike, shyly standing in front of the pair of animatronic animals.

At least, he _had _been standing.

"MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKE!" Chica squealed, lunging at the unsuspecting night guard.

One second he upright and perfectly fine and the next his back had met the floor in an unceremonious union. Mike grunted audibly, his fingers brushing against a soft, fur-like material. He looked down, seeing his yellow assailant cuddling him tightly by the waist, pressing herself up against him.

Mike couldn't help but shift uncomfortably as he _especially _felt the presence of two oddly large, cushiony objects near his hips. He fought both the blood rushing to his cheeks _and _the blood that was, alarmingly, attempting to funnel into the wrong head as he gently hugged the chicken back.

"Thanks SO much faw the prezents, mistah Mike sir!" She yelled ecstatically, tightening her grip around the helpless, furiously blushing night guard for but a second before finally letting him go and sitting up, still smiling.

Mike couldn't help but smile back as he stared at her, ignoring Freddy's muttering of "Oh, brother…" behind them.

"W-Well, uh, you're very welcome, Chica." He hesitantly replied, still rather flustered from his close encounter of the _bird _kind as he brushed himself off. Suddenly, a low, gruff voice that was neither Freddy's nor Chica's cut off anything else any of them were going to say.

"Guh…keep it down, Chica! For Pete's sake, quit your yellin' and just lemme sleep in peace! It's not like we're gonna have to try and kill anybody tonight, is it? Oh, wait!" Bonnie began as Freddy and Chica's eyes widened, both frantically exchanging gazes and looking back at Mike's horrified face.

Bonnie continued his rant, yelling, "I've had to strum the exact same damn strings on this stupid guitar for 30 years, Chica! 30 YEARS! And do I get payed? Hell no! The CLOSEST thing I have to stress relief right now is these damn shutdown times, and you just decide to start screeching your beak off?! Apparently, I don't DESERVE a rest for all my hard work!

No, the only way I'd ever get any money and rest'd be for me to go to a blood bank and deposit MIKE, so that I could afford a ticket to HAWAII! And speakin' of Mike, I have to GUT the guy today! Do y'know how that makes me feel?! Makes ME feel pretty damn bad! I literally have to STUFF HIM INTO A-"

The purple bunny abruptly stopped his frantic pointing, ranting and yelling as his red eyes fell upon Mike. He simply stood completely still, slack jawed and still pointing aggressively, for a few seconds of exceedingly awkward silence. Freddy simply scratched his back with his fat fingers, looking around absent-mindedly, as Chica began silently picking at her cupcake, quietly whistling a show tune to herself.

Slowly, movement began to overtake Bonnie once more. He gradually began to lower his pointing arm and close his open mouth, still staring directly at Mike. He seemed to shrink in on himself, appearing to try and be as small as possible by squeezing his beefy purple arms as far into his sides as possible whilst his legs assumed the traditional 'desperate for a piss' position of both knees facing each other.

The bunny moved his gaze to the floor, rubbing his right arm with his left in embarrassment. He hesitantly cleared his throat.

"A-Ahem. Er…sorry about that. Didn't…didn't see you there." Bonnie practically whispered, attempting to look Mike in the eyes as little as possible.

The night guard in question's face softened, smiling once more. He chuckled. "It's no problem, really. I, er, I would probably be a little grouchy too, in your situation." He replied, rubbing his shoulder with the palm of his hand.

He couldn't help but think that Bonnie was being a tad melodramatic, though.

"So, er, guys, how're you finding the new 'boxes?" Mike asked eagerly, desperate to see whether they appreciated his impromptu little Christmas gifts as he wrung his hands nervously. He smiled an expectant smile.

Freddy was the first to reply.

His green eyes flashed with childlike glee and wonder.

"I love it. I jus-…thank you, Mike. _So_ much. So very, very much. I'm sorry if I've done some…regrettable…things whilst you've been here, but I assure you, I shall try my hardest to overcome whatever has been fuelling my vindictive rage these past few years. Because, and I'm proud to say this, you're my _friend._ And I care about you.

After all, if I didn't at least try to stop this madness, I may wind up killing you eventually; honestly, I'm not sure I'm able to handle murdering another innocent – especially not after this. I WILL try my hardest to prevent any more problems, though, I assure you. Bear's honour. Oh, it feels GOOD to speak uninhibited!" The slouched bear finally finished, raising his hulking arms in a grandiose matter after proclaiming his final sentence and laughing raucously.

Mike smiled. He turned to Chica. Her eyes, much like Freddy's, lit up – literally. Mike saw a slight glow behind her purple irises.

An immense smile graced her beak as she opened it, taking a deep breath. Freddy quickly stopped laughing, instead opting to brace himself for the torrent of verbal 'praise' that was about to befall his unfortunate ears, wincing in preparation.

"OHMYGOODNESS, MIKE, IT'STHEBESTTHINGEVAHSERIOUSLYITFEELSSOGOODTAJUSTBEABLETATALKSOFREELYWITHOUTWORRYIN'ABOUTANYTHIN', LIKEWOWIT'SJUSTGREATJUSTGREATITELLYA!" Chica exploded, flooding the Show Stage with the incredible sound of a blissful chicken. Unfortunately for the boys, she had not finished.

"HONESTLY, BEFAWYESTERDAY, ITHOUGHTWE'DNEVAHSPEAKPRAWPERLYAGAINBUTTHENYOUCAMEALAWNGANDYAPRETTYMUCHSAVEDUSANDNOWWECANSINGN'DANCEN'SINGSOMEMOREANDILOVEIT!" She finally completed, bringing her seemingly never-ending stream of run-on sentences to a close.

Mike could have sworn he felt warm liquid begin to trickle out of his ears as he simply flashed a brief smile at the hyperactive avian before turning to Bonnie. The purple bunny looked back at Mike for a second, caught off guard, before shrugging his shoulders casually in an attempt at looking nonchalant.

"Uh, yeah, they're pretty cool." He uttered simply.

Mike couldn't help but chuckle.

He continued conversing with his friends, telling them about his life since he'd left the pizzeria and never came back all those years ago, before he heard his name being called out from behind the large red curtain that concealed both him and the animatronics from the outside world.

"Huh. I…guess I gotta go." Mike muttered, slightly saddened, but at the same time, completely and utterly pumped.

'_Gimme your best shot, Freddy.' _He couldn't help but think to himself, excitement flowing through him. A night at Freddy's may have been horrifying, but boy, was it a _rush._

The animatronics gave him reluctant goodbye hugs and handshakes before he leapt down from the Show Stage, closing the curtain behind him once more. He searched for the source of the call before quickly locating the janitor, standing by the doorway leading out towards the Kitchen and East Hall.

"Your shift's startin' in a couple minutes. Good luck, kid." The old man simply said, before walking past Mike and heading towards the exit. He grunted a brief farewell as he passed the night guard, carrying his wet mop and bucket carelessly as he slowly lumbered towards the doors that served as both the entrance and way out of the pizzeria.

Mike checked his watch, shrugged, and proceeded towards his office.

He still had 4 minutes to burn before his night began, and there was not an employer to be seen. Mike scratched the bags under his eyes as he advanced down the East Hall, his tiredness being quickly replaced by a rush of adrenaline.

Oh, he was **so **ready for Freddy.

But was he ready for Foxy?

Oh, well. He'd cross that rickety old bridge when he'd come to it. Still, it was rather weird for the strange old Brit that the night guard had come to know as his employer to be a no-show. Had he just given up on him, or wha-

Oh, Lord almighty.

Mike screamed as he walked into his office, jumping a good few feet back outside, before catching his breath and scowling at the man laughing in his leather chair.

His employer sat, grinning ear to ear, before getting out of Mike's chair and holding his arms outstretched; akin to what one would do if requesting a hug.

"Mike! There you are! You don't want to know how long I was waiting there for you," His employer began, still grinning. Today he was wearing an all-black getup, including both a black turtleneck sweater adorned with white buttons and stripes along the sleeves. He also wore a basic pair of black tracksuit bottoms, streaked with white stripes much like those on his sweater.

"Welp, in any case, you made it to your third day, buddy! Wa-hey! That's my boy! I know you'll make it through your week yet. Right now, you're doing pretty well! Just, er, be sure to avoid eating in front of Chica. Dunno why you would, but it's just to be sure. You know." The mysterious man advised casually.

"Wait. Why?"

"Well, she can be a little…_bite-y_ when she sees food. Probably just a glitch with the AI, but hey. Just be careful; she might end up taking a chunk out of your head, hehe."

Mike simply nodded, suddenly feeling rather uncomfortable. He reached over to put on his body warmer and cap. He moved to put his cap on.

"_And it would be dreadful for business if we had __**another **__incident._"

Mike's eyes darted towards his employer; or, at least, where his employer _had been._ He could have sworn the man had muttered something before holding another one of his miraculous disappearing acts, but he had no idea what.

This time, the apparent spontaneous combustion of his employer did little to startle Mike – he was getting used to it with time.

Mike simply sighed, sinking into his leather chair reluctantly and checking his watch.

Right as he did, however, the phone in the office began to ring, causing him to very nearly leap out of his chair in alarm. Annoyed by being yet again caught off-guard by the most predictable machine that he'd had to face so far, he did not wait for the automatic voice mail, instead simply picking up the phone and slamming it to his ear.

"Hello, jackass!" Mike aggressively greeted, before quickly yanking the phone away from his head and hissing in surprise. There was no voice on the other end of the phone.

Only static greeted him.

Finding himself to be slightly alarmed, Mike slowly put the phone back into its holster on the table, whereupon it immediately began to play the next recorded voice mail of the night. Wide-eyed and a little jumpy, Mike simply pulled up his tablet and listened.

Doing so felt so exceedingly natural to him by now; almost like breathing or eating. That was a disconcerting thought.

As the phone guy continued to speak in his usual, matter-of-fact tone about the tips and tricks that Mike could use to help himself survive for longer, the oddly excited man found himself succumbing to the temptation to check Pirate Cove.

Upon switching camera feeds, however, he was met with the underwhelming image of a closed, purple, star-studded curtain. No movement was evident in the area.

"Whatever's the matter, Fantastic Mr. Fox?" Mike began to jeer quietly. "Scared of me? Of getting caught with your tail between your legs?"

Mike's eyes narrowed, reverting back to the Show Stage before immediately noting the fact that a certain female chicken was missing. Clicking through his camera feeds, Mike eventually found Chica in the Kitchen, making a cacophony of noise as her hard body collided with a multitude of pots and pans on her way to Mike's office.

It seemed like the gang wasn't able to fight their bloodlust, after all. Well, if that was how they wanted to play. Flicking back to the Show Stage, Mike began to grumble to himself upon realising that Bonnie, too, had disappeared. He readied himself for any potential encounters now that both were loose, tensed up and hunched over, being bathed in the reassuring artificial light of his tablet.

He found Bonnie staring back at him once more in the Backstage area, his red, glassy eyes unfocused. Mike sneered at him from the other side of the camera, tightening his grip on the tablet as he fought the urge to have a breakdown.

Everything would be fine. He was only a few minutes into the night, yes, Bonnie and Chica were already loose, yes, phone guy was _still prattling on_, yes, but he was still keeping his power reserves in good shape. That, combined with his quick thinking and even quicker feet, would get him through the night, no sweat!

Right?

Right.

Psyching himself up, Mike mentally prepared for the long, arduous night that awaited him.

An hour later, and not much had changed. Chica had moved to the East Hall, as was the norm, Bonnie was routinely patrolling the pizzeria, occasionally veering from his rather spontaneous path in order to attempt to catch Mike with his metaphorical pants down, and there was still no sign of movement from behind Pirate Cove's ominous purple curtains.

Occasionally, however, Mike would hear the whirring of hydraulic joints as his camera fully activated, before abruptly stopping once the video feed came up. That worried him. Suddenly, he didn't feel like such a hotshot.

He hadn't anticipated the fact that Foxy could have just been waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

Mike's Adam's apple shifted in his throat as he gulped lightly, unnerved by his revelation. This was about the fourth time he'd heard the mysterious whirring, and he was starting to get jumpy. The young man shifted uncomfortably in his leather seat as it squeaked under his weight, scratching his stubble nervously as it made a gentle scraping noise under his fingernails.

He switched over to the Show Stage camera once more, checking on Freddy. He was still there. Good. That was progress.

Now he just needed to wait another five hours, and he would be home free. He was already at 73%, though. It seemed like he would need to start cutting down on his camera usage. After all, he needed enough power to keep his doors closed long enough to keep him safe.

He repeated his pattern once more; check Backstage, Bonnie still there. Check the East Hall, Chica still there. Check Pirate Cove, nothing yet. Check the Show Stage, Fre-…Freddy?

Where the Hell was Freddy?!

Mike grunted with discomfort. He wasn't used to this. He wasn't READY for this. Sure, the phone guy had clued him in again, as per usual, but he didn't know anything _for sure. _The phone guy had the incredibly annoying tendency of giving Mike what he called a 'Tip Sandwich'; he would prattle on for 10 minutes about bland, useless garbage about the company and how great it was, then, for about 2 minutes, he would disclose incredibly important information pertaining to the behaviour of key animatronics, and then fill in the rest of his phone calls with yet more useless trash.

He even had the gall to begin talking about his weird fondness for cheese in his phone call on Mike's second night. Crazy git.

Mike frantically flicked through the camera feeds, hoping to find Freddy in a similar way as he had the night before. He squinted and leaned closer to his screen, staring off into the background of the blackened rooms for just one glimpse of those damn pin-prick eyes. He stopped at the Restrooms, breathing in through his nose sharply as he quickly sat up again.

There, lurking in the shadows not too far from the camera, was Freddy himself, staring directly into the lens. It seemed the bear knew exactly where all the cameras were, and had went out of his way to try and avoid them.

Mike looked into the blank, unregistering eyes of the main star of the pizzeria through his tablet, feeling sorry for him.

"Sorry you couldn't fight it off, bug guy." He found himself muttering remorsefully. "Maybe tomorrow, huh?"

'_That is, if I live to SEE tomorrow.'_ Mike quickly, and bitterly, reminded himself.

Another two hours passed in the pizzeria. Mike's watch read 3:56AM as he checked it for the umpteenth time. The monotony of the night had begun to nag at him. He was curious to find, however, that Freddy _still _hadn't moved from his spot in the Restrooms; why, he couldn't exactly pinpoint.

At points throughout the night, the camera there would cut out as they did when an animatronic was on the move, but Mike would hear the sound of hydraulics whirring outside his door for approximately a minute every time before finding Freddy back in the shadows of the Restrooms.

Whenever Mike checked on Chica, she seemed to smile into the camera – the sides of her orange beak would upturn ever so slightly, but no other movement would be evident. Mike simply shrugged it off as his eyes playing tricks on him the first time it had happened, but it seemed to happen each and every time the East Hall camera activated. It was rather odd, but hey.

As long as she wasn't attacking him, he supposed.

Another hour. 4:48AM, and Mike still had 35% of his power. Mike was, quite honestly, rather surprised. This was, after all, the night in which the phone guy claimed things would 'get real'. Not that Mike was complaining, though; after all, Foxy still hadn't even peeked out from behind his curtain at all throughout the night.

Mike smiled as he flicked over once again to the camera in Pirate Cove. Maybe Freddy's hostility towards the pirate fox the day before had gotten to him more than he had suspected? As Mike mulled over this train of thought, his brain didn't register the image of Pirate Cove's tattered curtain sitting wide open with nothing within its dark confines until he heard the rhythmic thumping of metal feet getting ever-closer to his office from the far end of the West Hall.

Mike's eyes widened, doing a double take at his tablet. The sign sitting outside Pirate Cove seemed to have been twisted entirely around, its supposedly blank other side bearing the intimidating phrase 'IT'S ME' in a hasty, scratched scrawl to the camera.

Mike's head darted up, his eyes near-instantly shooting towards his left door button. He jumped out of his seat, moving to press it.

However, his fingers merely skimmed the button as something metallic sliced its way along the side of his right hand, causing it to veer off course and instead simply hit the wall.

Mike screamed in pain, holding his burning right hand. He looked, and even in the low light could tell that the dark liquid dripping down his wrist was his own _blood._ Suddenly, he felt extremely queasy.

He frantically looked up, staring directly into the resentful eyes of his childhood hero; his hook was now coated in Mike's dark red blood.

The night guard wanted to vomit. He was going to _die_, and all while he was **so damn close**. Just one more hour. That was all he needed. _One more Goddamn hour._

Mike backed up against the far wall of the room, preparing himself for the inevitable stuffing that was coming his way as Foxy cackled in front of him, revealing his toothy maw and savagely waving his hook at Mike tauntingly as he did.

Mike closed his eyes, seeing the pirate raise his suit-less left hand as he reached for the night guard's face. He braced himself for the feel of cold steel against his skull.

The feeling, however, never came.

Instead, Mike heard a loud _thunk_, quickly followed by an ear-piercing screech. Opening his eyes, Mike bore witness to an astounding sight.

_Chica was pinning Foxy to the ground._

She grunted roughly as she held his head down, keeping it on the floor, before looking up at Mike. Her purple eyes had been replaced with empty sockets, save for two pin-prick purple pupils, as she stared up at him.

"Mike! Run! Save yerself! I'll be witcha soon, I prawmise!" Chica yelled, scowling at the thrashing fox below her. Mike didn't hesitate in following her order, bolting out of the room through the right-hand door.

Chica attempted to pin Foxy down once more a few seconds later, when a particularly violent bout of thrashing had rocked her off-balance slightly. Quickly trying to plant her knees at either side of the pirate again, she left herself vulnerable. She was knocked onto her side by a vicious thwack to the side of her face. She fell forward, shattering the protective glass layer that had once been over her left eye.

The chicken yowled in pain, curling up and attempting to pick up the shards of glass pitifully. Foxy did not allow that, grabbing her by her oh-so-fragile neck mercilessly and yanking her onto her feet, darting behind her and grabbing her 'Let's Eat!' apron before pulling it towards him carelessly.

Chica began clawing at her dainty neck as Foxy continued with his attempt to strangle her. She quickly recuperated, however, before whacking him on the cheek with the back of her fist. Foxy stumbled back before suddenly stopping.

Chica, too, stopped.

They both stared, both attempting to psyche one another out.

Foxy began to speak in that old, rusty voice of his.

"M-Mu-Mutiny, i-is it, gir-girl-girlie?" Foxy asked threateningly before chuckling to himself, beginning to circle Chica as she held up her fists to try and defend herself from his inevitable attack.

Foxy's hook hand began to twirl in its holster slowly as he circled her, clicking as it moved.

"No, actchally, Foxy," Chica began, her icy tone sounding foreign to Foxy. he had never seen Chica angry. Her beak upturned, becoming a look of disgust. "Ah'm just doin' what's right, ya backstabbin' scumbag!"

She charged. As did Foxy. He was faster.

Chica's world stopped.

She stroked her right cheek.

Looking at her delicate fingers, she saw a thick black liquid coat them when she pulled her hand away. She was…bleeding.

She looked at the black screen of the tablet, now having been turned off. She gasped as she saw an immense, deep gash running across her cheek.

She sobbed. Foxy stepped outside, getting ready to bolt out of the right-hand door as Mike had. He looked back at her pathetic, sobbing form. He raised his hook hand at her threateningly, now dripping with the combined blood of the defenceless night guard as well as the weak, crying chicken's.

"Ne-Nex-Next tim-time, girl-girlie, I-I won't-t be s-so-so gentl-gentle." Foxy growled, smiling like a jackal before darting out of the office room. Chica could hear him in the distance. "H-Here, Mikey M-Mikey! C-Co-Come to ca-cap'n Fox-Foxy!"

She only wailed louder.

Meanwhile, Mike had hidden in the Storage Room, his breath hitching in his throat. All the excitement he had held for the night was now virtually non-existent. The adrenaline that pumped through his veins was a by-product of his _fear, _not his sense of courage.

It seemed it wasn't Freddy that broke him after all, Mike thought to himself as he rubbed his right hand, still bleeding profusely.

It was Foxy.

He knew that Chica wouldn't be able to keep him in there for very long. She was only 6-feet tall. Mike felt incredibly guilty. What if he were to hurt the poor girl, what would Mike do then?

Nothing.

He wouldn't be able to do anything except sit next to her and think about the fact that he would be the one responsible, wallowing in his own guilt.

No.

Not this time. Not when she risked her own safety to save his life.

It was only logical to return the favour.

He hesitantly opened the door to Storage, peeking out hesitantly. He began to slowly walk out, attempting to make as little sound as possible. However, as soon as he walked into the corridor, Foxy bolted out of the door to his office, instantly seeing him and giving chase.

Mike bottled up his screams, instead simply choosing to run for dear life.

He bolted through the doors at the far end of the corridor, the furry pirate closing the distance with every passing second. Soon enough, he began to hear the sound of a hook swiping at air just behind him.

Mike bit his lip to stop himself from swearing once more, full-blown _sprinting _towards the Kitchen door. He had a plan. He still had the keys the employer gave him during his first night at the place on him; if he could just…

Mike came to a skidding halt right in front of the foreboding set of double doors, its windows only providing a view of solid darkness. He turned to the fox, who was only a metre or so behind him.

Foxy had been caught off-guard by Mike's sudden stop, and attempted to slow down. Instead, his gripless metal feet simply slid him straight past his target, of whom his hook just barely missed as he passed, skimming his sideburns.

Foxy screeched as he burst through the Kitchen doors, unable to stop himself, before falling into an ungraceful heap on the floor. It then sunk in as to just _where _he had ended up.

Eyes widening, Foxy stood in an attempt to run back out of the small room as hydraulics that were not his own began to whir in one of the room's darkened corners.

However, before he could reach them they were slammed in his face. He began to screech frantically as he heard the door lock from the other side.

Desperately, he began to claw at the large doors. A tune straight out of a music box began to play behind him.

Mike walked away, feeling so proud of himself that he didn't notice the fact that Foxy's frantic scratching had abruptly stopped whilst he did.

Mike checked his watch. 5:48AM. Phew. That was a close one. He quickly ran back into his office, before getting a horrific surprise. He couldn't help but gasp.

In the centre of the room was Chica, lying in a pool of oil with gashes and brutal slices adorning her pristine feathers. She had assumed the fetal position, her thin arms wrapped around her knees as she sobbed and coughed.

Mike ran over to her without hesitation, feeling like crying himself. He had never seen Chica in a state like this, and, frankly, he never wanted to again.

Cradling her gently in his arms, he asked the obvious question; "What the Hell happened here?!"

"F-Foxy…he-he hurt m-me…real bad…"

The poor girl could barely talk amidst her own blubbering and coughing.

Mike began to sob himself. He had let this happen, just like he thought he would. He could have stopped this, but he didn't. Freddy and Bonnie stood at the doors on either side, respectfully keeping their distance. Freddy took off his top hat, lowering his head remorsefully.

Mike spent the rest of his night shift sitting on the filthy floor with Chica, crying with her in his arms.

**A/N: So, how'd you like this chapter, guys? Did you, er, expect it to get that dark?**

**Heh. I've always wanted to write some dark fiction. Tell me how I did! Oh, also, some shoutouts, because you guys have been so awesome and kind in the reviews section:**

**-Coldjack007**

**How's this for more? My longest chapter yet! I hope this reached your expectations, buddy. :)**

**-Looking4thebest**

**Here's your fix, bro. Don't use it all up too quickly! xD**

**-All the guests that have reviewed**

**Oh, God, guys! You're SO KIND! I love you guys, seriously; and, yes, homo! C;**

**-Fireworksafterdawn**

**Oh, boy. Where do I even start? Y'know, your first review was actually one of the ones that really inspired me to continue this story after the first chapter. Every other story I've EVER written has been left incomplete due to not getting any feedback, positive OR negative. So…thank you. So much. Keep up the amazing artwork for me, alright? :D**

**And, finally…**

**-Everyone who has followed and favourite my work!**

**You guys are what fuel me. Seriously. I'm a very petty person, I need the attention! Nah, but seriously, I can't thank you guys enough. The first time I ever saw that this story was getting follows, and even **_**favourites**_**, I let out a far-less-than-manly squeal. And I'm proud. :D Thanks so much, guys.**

**Welp, that's it. It might take me a little while longer to upload now, since school is starting up again and all, but I promise you guys this: I'm NOT giving up on **_**this **_**story.**

**Thanks so much again for reading all this, I just needed to get it all off my chest. Happy New Year, guys!**


	5. No Strings Attached - Part 1

A few hours later, and not much had changed. Mike still lay on the floor, holding Chica tightly in his arms. He stared at the floor near his feet as he gently cradled the delicate chicken, who had long stopped sobbing. She had also taken to staring fixatedly at random things in the room in an attempt to take her mind off of the pain.

Mike stroked her head absent-mindedly, ignoring the dull throbbing in his now bandaged right hand. Freddy had long since snapped back to his usual self, worriedly sitting next to the pair of shaken victims of Foxy.

Speaking of whom, the pirate hadn't returned from the Kitchen yet. Even the enormous bear himself was getting worried.

Could It have got to him?

No, couldn't have. Foxy was a tough egg to crack.

Then again, It was tougher. It had been around for as long as Freddy had and _longer._ The bear still found himself getting startled by those hollow eyes gazing at him from the Kitchen window. Ugh, and the _claws_.

Shaking off his spontaneously unnerving thinking, Freddy once again focused on the pathetic sight of one of his good friends, one whom he had been performing with for as long as he could remember, snivelling in the arms of what his night-time instincts told him was a disgusting waste of flesh.

Luckily for many, he never really listened to those night-time instincts at any point other than 12:00AM. Freddy looked up at the clock in the far right corner of the office, positioned just above the multitude of monitors that Mike had been given access to, as it read 7:23AM.

He looked back towards Mike, only to immediately look up again at the sound of a startled human voice.

"Jesus Christ! Chica, what in God's name happened to you?!"

Oh. It was just Jeremy. He was the maintenance worker for the place; had been for the past couple of years now. He was well into his fourties, but still managed to be a damn fine worker. He, too, knelt in front of the torn up chicken as Mike protectively tightened his grip around her, glaring at the other man icily.

Jeremy simply stared back for a few seconds, appearing to have only noticed the night guard at that point. Scratching his thick brown moustache, he sighed, understanding how the younger man felt.

"Listen, er…" Jeremy began, stopping to take a quick glance at the oil-coated nametag on Mike's body-warmer. "…Mike. I get it, brother. You're worried about her. I take it you've been workin' here for more than a day?"

Mike nodded aggressively.

"Yep. Thought so. They begin to grow on ya after a while, eh? Heh." The pudgy maintenance man chuckled bitterly. Mike could tell it hurt him to see Chica in such an abysmal state too. "These guys have been my friends for quite a while now. We talk from time to time." Jeremy continued, gently taking Chica's soft head in his hands and beginning to inspect the scratches and wounds.

He winced upon coming across the particularly nasty one on her swollen golden cheek, the vibrant yellow feathers around it being off-coloured as a result of her excessive 'bleeding'.

It seemed that the animatronic herself had entered some sort of 'trauma coping' mode, having appeared to have passed out from oil loss. Some of the shattered glass from her decimated eye had gotten themselves stuck between her black eyelids.

"Ah, geez. It's, er, gonna take me a day or two to get her back into performing shape." Jeremy began once again, attempting to meet Mike's regretful eyes.

Mike, however, didn't take his eyes off of the sorry excuse for an animatronic in front of him. Chica's feathers, usually feeling soft and warm, now felt ice-cold against his skin.

"Y'think you could handle that, pal?"

Jeremy paused for a few seconds before gently grabbing Mike's shoulder and shaking it.

"…Pal?"

"…Just do it. Fix her. I don't care…how long it takes." Mike finally managed to bring himself to say, speaking through gritted teeth. Jeremy flinched slightly at the sudden venom in his words. It seemed that Mike over here had become _very _attached to the group of robotic animals; perhaps even more-so than he had over the years.

Jeremy sat still for a second or two, thinking, before nodding once at Mike and carefully picking Chica up off of the grotty floor of the office. Freddy managed to heft himself up, helping the aged man carry the oddly heavy chicken. Bonnie simply trailed behind, silent and pensive as usual.

Mike remained knelt, tearful, regretful and alone, for hours afterwards.

Foxy awoke from unconsciousness, startled by a loud noise from outside the Kitchen door.

Wait.

The Kitchen! He was still in the Kitchen!

And he was…alive?

Oh, boy.

Foxy's head instantly whirred around to gaze at the source of all of his terror, sighing in stuttery relief as he noticed that It was back where it belonged. No whirring anymore.

His head turned to face forward again as he closed his good eye, resting his head on the wall behind him. His arms and legs remained limp as he chose to simply lie still for a minute or two, relishing the silence that he had believed only his cove would be able to offer.

Eventually snapping back to reality, the aged pirate moved to get up. As he did, however, he felt something brush against the tips of his fur.

_No._

_How didn't he see It?_

Now wide-eyed and alarmed, the fox stood entirely and slowly, _agonizingly _slowly, turned his head to face whatever had brushed against him.

He was met with nothing but thin air.

Closing his eyes once more and putting his metal hand to his chest, Foxy exhaled once more. He was getting paranoid. Seeing things. Came with being a cranky old hermit, he surmised. Shaking his head at his own cowardice, the pirate smiled and walked to the door. The stories he had heard about this room were starting to gnaw at him, and he knew it.

He reached for the door, but his hand stopped, only inches away.

Was that a whisper?

No. Couldn't have been. Ignore it. Freedom was only inches away. Reach for the door.

But something told him _not to_. His paranoia? His paralyzing sense of fear? Foxy didn't know. And not knowing things _bothered _him immensely. Bottling up his fear, Foxy once again turned his head to watch for danger, this time looking behind him.

Nothing, once again. There was really nothing to be worried about. After all, It was still in its-

Foxy turned back to the door, only to be met with a pair of white pupils burning into him.

The sea-farer screeched in terror, falling backwards and nearly smashing the back of his head open on one of the Kitchen's many counters. Thank goodness for his naturally hard body.

His eyes shakily travelled upwards, taking in more of It.

It's claws had snaked around the ropes that held up one of the Kitchen's slowly rocking lights, stringing it up from the ceiling entirely upside-down. It grinned at Foxy as, slowly, one of It's stick-insect-like legs twisted bonelessly and its foot met with the floor. It sank down to the pirate's level, staring him square in the eye.

Taking a single broad step closer, It closed the small gap between the two animatronics. Bringing up a large hand, it slowly stroked Foxy's hard lower jaw, scraping It's hard claws along it as It did.

Foxy could do nothing but lie there, stock-still, lest he risked being gutted for making a sudden movement. Then, like a bullet, the hand that had been stroking his jaw oh-so-aggressively had raked its claws along his face before burying them effortlessly into the eye socket beneath his patch.

Foxy yowled in pain, but tried his hardest not to thrash. Anything it did to him now would be far better than what it would do to him if he tried to wriggle his way out from underneath It's lithe form. He knew that from what Freddy had told him all those years ago.

Suddenly, a quiet, intimidatingly calm voice came from the throat of It, the blanket of darkness that coated it only making it more imposing. It sounded like both a male and a female creature at the same time; a rugged, deep voice spoke in perfect unison with a soothing, gentle-sounding one.

Foxy knew, however, that this…_thing's _intentions were anything _but_ gentle.

It chuckled at first, seeming to be amused by the helpless fox's pain. Then It truly spoke.

"Leaving so soon?" It crooned breathily as It had begun cradling Foxy's head in It's enormous hands. The pirate could nearly have considered the voice seductive, if not for the obviously sadistic tone underlying it.

Then Foxy noticed It raising It's other hand, unsheathing the razor-like claws hidden within It's fingers. He began to beg frantically, unblinking as he gazed at the face of death itself. These claws began to rake along his left arm, splitting open the soft layer of 'skin' overlying the metal beneath effortlessly.

It spoke again.

"Hm. Perhaps you have potential. I've seen what you did yesterday. Such a naughty boy. _I like that. _However, it will not be enough tonight. I want you to do…_everything _in your power to make sure that night watchman is subjected to my 'fun'. Is that understood, jackal-boy?"

The request came out as a crooned threat. But Foxy needed to know more.

"Wh-Wha-What if-if…I-I-I don-don't get i-im'-im', m'l-lady…s-sir?" The pirate hesitantly asked, dreading the answer. That is, if It was merciful enough to give him one and not simply end his life right then and there.

He could have sworn the smile It seemed to constantly wear dropped for a second.

"…Are you arguing against my wishes, boy?" It slowly, deliberately asked, It's claws beginning to produce a horrid scraping noise as they struck the metal on Foxy's thin arm.

"N-No-No, o-of cours-course not, y-your exc-exce-excellence a-and opule-opulence…n-ness! I-I wa-was mer-mere-merely curiou-curious as to-to what y-you, in all yo-your splendour-splendour, wou-ould do to m-me i-if I fail-failed!" Foxy barely managed to stutter out, desperately attempting to rectify his grave mistake.

He hated speaking to It as if It had power over him, but, quite honestly, it _did._ It continued wearing It's smile of false sweetness as It seemed content with his ass-kissing.

"Ah. Good boy. You managed to wriggle you way out the spider's web there, didn't you? Hm-hm." It chuckled.

No, he hadn't. He was still _in _the spider's web. He would take a confrontation with Freddy over being locked in a dark room with It any day.

"Well, since you asked so nicely. Well, if you fail…so many things to **rip out**…hmm…ooh, yes, that sounds good." It continued in mock-pensiveness. "First, I would rip out your eyes. Not entirely, mind you! I'd want them to remain activated for the rest.

I would then turn them to face you, so you could watch your pathetic, broken body's last moments as it scrambles around in blind terror. I'd probably choose to kill you near a table or something, too; that way there'd be something to rest them on. I don't like doing too much work myself, you see." It arrogantly proclaimed, picking at It's claws and removing wet clumps of orange fur.

"Then, after leaving you in that state for about a minute or so, I would use these," It brandished It's claws at Foxy proudly, "to rip your old, rusty voicebox out. Now, doesn't that sound like fun? I would then shove your eyeballs down the hole I'd have made in your throat so you could choke on them, and then skin you…ever so slowly.

Finally, I would dismantle you after checking to make sure you were still alive.

Piece. By piece. By piece." It finished, making a macabre tearing motion with It's large hands.

"Is that a good enough answer for you, 'Captain'?" It teased, tilting It's head at Foxy mockingly.

"Y-Y-Ye-Yep." Foxy shakily replied, both wide-eyed and nursing his damaged eye socket. To his relief, It finally rose off of his petrified form, holding out a jelly-like arm to help him up. Foxy grabbed it, being yanked up with far more force than he had precedented.

He stumbled slightly, caught off-guard, before quickly recovering and once again pressing his iron hand onto his 'bleeding' eye. His hook covered the wound on his opposing arm, soothing the pain with its cold sensation.

It slunk back to the corner once more, It's arms flopping uselessly by It's sides. Bathed in the darkness, Foxy could only see a faint shadow and two bright white dots staring back at him.

"Don't fail me." It simply said before reverting back to It's shutdown mode, slowly sliding down the wall into It's automated containment unit, limp as a corpse.

Foxy shuddered, choosing to cease looking behind him as he briskly bolted out of the Kitchen and back into his precious cove. Sniffling slightly, the captain simply huddled up against the rusty wall of his little hovel and sat in the fetal position until 12:00AM arrived; his tears and sobs went hidden by his curtain.

Jeremy arrived in the Backstage area a few minutes after he had moved Chica out of Mike's office. She reeked of oil, the powerful odour burning Jeremy's nostrils. Freddy helped him lay the unconscious chicken on the table in the centre of the room before hanging back, choosing to watch worriedly. He didn't want to help out of his fear of doing more harm than good.

He looked on anxiously as the middle-aged man in front of him carefully unlatched Chica's costume head, slowly pulling it off of her shoulders. He was met with a metal box underneath; a metal box that contained some of the most complex mechanisms on that side of the globe.

Both Freddy and Jeremy were relieved to see that her endoskeleton seemed to be unharmed, but it wouldn't be enough to just replace the costume head. Jeremy knew Chica well, and he knew that that damaged head was her favourite. According to her, it was the one that seemed to fit just right. In any case, it drove him to try his hardest to repair it.

He picked up a few sheets of metal and 'skin' before putting on a welding mask and slamming it down over his face. As well as being a maintenance man, Jeremy dabbled as a mechanic. He offered to fill both positions and, seeing as Fazbear Enterprises was home to some of the stingiest people on the planet, they agreed gleefully.

With steady hands, he began cutting the wafer of metal into smaller, more manageable patches with a thick hacksaw so that he could begin the slow process of patching up all of the unsightly gashes on the costume, being mindful and precise about it. Due to the loss of one of the main band members in the pizzeria, Freddy's had been closed for the day.

Freddy himself stood in the corner the whole time, nervously wringing his thick paws. His face was contorted into an expression of worry. How had he let this happen?!

No matter. He would _not _convert again. He couldn't afford to. Not with Foxy being given free-reign of the restaurant during the night, when nobody but him could help his friends. He was a danger, and Freddy knew it. Hopefully Foxy had decided to lay off Mike for tonight due to his trip to the Kitchen; that is, if he'd survived it.

Freddy still hadn't seen him.

Oh, well. He supposed they would all find out that night.

A few hours into the repairs, a familiar face trudged in. Jeremy briefly stopped his work to acknowledge the other man, nodding once more at Mike. This time, Mike nodded back, seemingly relieved to see that Chica was receiving help of some sort. He walked beside the older man, looking down at Chica's endoskeleton head. Her pretty animatronic eyes were attached to the metal box, still shut and still stuffed with glass shards.

"How is she?" Mike muttered simply, gazing at Jeremy for a mere second before looking back to Chica.

"Thankfully, the damage isn't as bad as I'd anticipated. I should be done in an hour or two. Don't worry, man. She'll be OK." The maintenance man turned mechanic replied encouragingly, patting Mike's shoulder in a friendly gesture of happiness.

Mike stared at him, wide-eyed, for a second or two before grinning from ear-to-ear and wrapping the man in a tight hug. Jeremy returned his wide-eyed stare after they parted again.

"Thank you. I jus-…thank you." Mike breathlessly said, now beaming gleefully.

"Don't worry about it, man. You and I? We're just doin' our jobs; don't mean we can't care for the guys we're takin' care of, though, am I right?" Jeremy muttered, embarrassed but happy to snap Mike out of his depression.

"Yeah. You're right, man." Mike replied, his smile seeming to only grow with every passing second. He grabbed Jeremy's hand tightly, shaking it ecstatically, before quickly sprinting out of the room.

A few seconds later, a very audible "WOO!" rocked the building.

Jeremy simply smiled in that way all wise men do, turning back to his work and speeding up slightly; Mike was waiting, after all.

He didn't want to keep him for _too _long.

Speaking of waiting, Mike proceeded to do exactly that; he settled down in his office chair, now far more relaxed and content than he had been only hours ago. Soon enough, he felt a familiar feeling of drowsiness overtake him. He decided to give in to it, eagerly shutting his eyes. This way, he wouldn't have to consciously wait hours to get his friend back! It was genius!

_What could possibly go wrong?_

An hour or so later, and Mike began to shuffle in his sleep. He found himself opening his eyes to nothingness. An empty white void.

A dream. Oh, God. So THAT was the worst that could happen.

But, wait. This wasn't _the _dream. This was different.

He realised that as soon as he laid eyes on a very tall figure standing a few meters opposite him.

In two long bounds of its stilt-like legs, it cleared the distance between them. Mike attempted to move back a few paces, but he found himself unable to. Thus, he simply resorted to staring defiantly at the large entity.

"I have been watching you." It said, its voice a deep, resonant boom in the otherwise entirely silent world that he was currently in.

"I have been watching you very intently indeed. And I must say, I'm impressed." It continued, eyeing Mike with admiration. "You are…different…compared to the rest of them. You have potential."

"Oh, yeah? Potential for what, you stick-figured freak?" Mike spat confidently. This was a dream, after all. Whatever this thing was, it couldn't hurt him in real life.

"I was hoping you'd ask that." It replied just as confidently, its deep voice becoming a snakelike hiss.

"You have potential, my dear Mike, for many things. You could be an accountant. You're a smart man. Good with numbers. You could also be an IT worker. Lots of jobs in that department, you're good with computers, you know the drill. Or, and bear with me on this, you have the potential to be **mine**."

With that, the apparent spirit slammed its hand into Mike's forehead and images were planted into his brain. His vision was obscured by horrifying images, all related to the empty animatronic suits in the pizzeria's Backstage area.

Mike screamed as his eyes began to water, seemingly of their own accord. He grabbed his head in an attempt to stop the pictures; one flashed across his eyes every split second, without fail, yet he could still make out everything in them so clearly.

They were all images of freshly killed night guards. Some were being stuffed into a suit, the gory details clear in the images, and some were of guards already in suits; eyeballs were clearly visible in the eye sockets of the masks, and blood dripped out of every orifice.

As the horrifying slideshow continued, the deep, bellowing voice once again sounded in his head.

"THIS is what you could be, Mike! You could be with your animatronic friends _forever! _What's more, I have a very _special _surprise for you if they catch you! Hopefully they'll do their JOBS tonight and end you, dear boy; trust me, you'll love the little gift I've prepared for you!"

As the supposed animatronic stopped talking, one last picture filled Mike's head. A grotty…olive? coloured Freddy Fazbear suit, vacant of an endoskeleton, sitting in a room that Mike couldn't identify. As Mike tried to make sense of the image, a feeling akin to having a red hot poker being driven through his brain filled his head.

Screaming, Mike's vision became filled with words that slowly scratched themselves into his mind, burning his skull. It was a single sentence, repeated over and over, until the scratchy white text was all that he could see.

'**JOIN ME.'**

Mike awoke in a cold sweat, yelling. His vision was blurry for a few seconds, but after holding his head still for a few seconds and letting a spontaneous pain in his head ebb away, it returned to him. Looking up, he saw the startled face of Chica, looking at him in worry. Jeremy stood next to her, equally as surprised.

In an instant, Mike went for sitting in his chair to wrapping Chica up tightly in his arms, muttering how he'd never leave her alone again.

At that point, looking at Chica, one may have guessed that she had been a tomato in a previous life. Jeremy didn't know how, but the animatronics seemed to be able to convey their feelings just as easily as a human – right down to blushing.

Chica simply stood, dumbstruck, for a few seconds, before giving in and smiling to herself. She then proceeded to lift Mike off of his feet with a tight hug of her own, causing the young man to be caught off-guard. He grunted, squirming slightly, before quickly giving in and going limp in her arms. They laughed.

Jeremy smiled as he stood next to Freddy. He checked his watch, seeing that it was already 10:49PM. Geez, that quickly?! Oh, well. He'd best be leaving. Taking one last glance at the happy 'couple' (Jeremy was a dreamer), he noticed Mike give him an embarrassed but grateful toothy grin, still wrapped up in Chica's arms. Unfortunately for him, being lifted up meant that his chest was shoved directly into her bosom.

Oddly enough, though, Mike found himself failing to care.

Jeremy smiled back at him before waving and turning towards Freddy. He gazed at him for a few seconds, retaining his smile.

Freddy, confused, looked at Mike and Chica, then back at Jeremy. Then back at Mike and Chica again.

His smile dropped.

_Oh, you had to be kidding._

"Never." Freddy muttered, crossing his arms and leering at Jeremy.

"Oh, come on, you big teddy bear. You cuddle everyone else!" Jeremy replied playfully.

Freddy smirked. Now he had him.

"Well, everyone else aren't fat, greasy old men that wipe thick liquid off the faces of women for a living." Freddy retorted, grinning mischievously as a victorious glint filled his green eyes. Jeremy simply stared for a few seconds, brainfarting after the admittedly clever comeback.

"Screw you, Baloo." He replied simply, attempting to retain his dignity, before walking out of the office wordlessly.

Freddy laughed.

11:55PM. This was going to be fun.

Mike walked into his office, now unsurprised to see his employer sitting his smug ass down in _his _chair, seeming to have expected to net himself another scare. His smile dropped as Mike simply regarded him with a serious face. He was really starting to get tired of this guy.

He sighed as his employer got out Mike's chair, ready for yet another agonisingly joyful mini-speech.

He was jarred back into reality with only a few short words, however.

"I see you aren't dead yet." The British man said grimly, staring at Mike with a penetrating glare. Mike had nothing. He was baffled. What the Hell had happened last night? Somebody piss in this clown's cornflakes or something?!

As Mike stayed silent, his employer sighed. He rubbed his temples in an attempt at soothing himself. He was wearing the full freak combo today, just to top off the creep factor. He wore both his Christmas makeup and his striped tracksuit/turtleneck combo from the day before, the blush doing nothing in terms of making him seem jollier.

"Uh, yeah, I'm not dead, jackass! Who the Hell says that to a guy?!" Mike finally brought himself to reply, spluttering. He was angry now.

The mysterious man completely ignored Mike's volatile remark, however. He simply ended with, "You should be dead." before vanishing, Mike watching in shock. One second he had been standing there, threatening him, and the next he had turned into smoke. Literally.

It began at his shoulders and spread to the rest of his body in a flash; he had went from being a solid, physically-there human being to vapour in the blink of an eye. In _plain sight of Mike._

He stood, mouth hanging open, until he heard the phone ring once again. Surprised, Mike quickly uttered an "Oh crap!" before darting into his seat. He hastily put on his cap and body warmer, which had once again been left for him on his desk, before turning on his tablet for what felt like the millionth time that week.

Already Chica had gone missing. Mike sighed exasperatedly.

"We shared a hug, Chica! Does that mean nothing to you?!" Mike whisper-shouted to himself, finally hearing the phone begin its voice message.

This one was different, though.

_Very _different.

Mike felt a cold chill run up his spine by the end of the audio tape, feeling pure dread fill his veins.

_He was dead._

_That guy on the phone…was really __dead__._

Just like he'd wanted only two nights ago.

Suddenly Mike felt excruciatingly guilty as he continued staring at his tablet fixatedly. In mere minutes, however, he was caught off guard by a knock on the window to his right. Jerking his head up and smacking his light button in record time, Mike was astounded to find Chica there, standing outside his door, at 12:06AM.

Mike screamed, flying to the door's close button. That's how they were gonna be tonight, huh?! Well. He wouldn't be caught with his pants down again, that's for su-

"Mike! Wait, please!" Chica yelled.

At the sound of her voice, Mike stumbled. His right hand once again smacked into the wall, eliciting a pained groan from him as the burning sensation welled up under his bandages again. Chica gasped as she put her hands to her mouth, looking guilty. Quickly she ran in, helping Mike back into his chair.

Well, more simply hefting him into it herself. He had gone limp in shock when she began to touch him.

He flopped down into the chair like a sack of potatoes, rapidly realising that Chica was there to help once again. How?!

"I-I…but, er…Chica?" Mike babbled, nearly losing his mind over the fact that Chica had now resisted her night-time urges _three times in a row_. She simply smiled at him.

"Ya mind'f I jus' siddown ovah here?" Chica asked, gesturing at the desk in front of Mike. He simply shook his head, still completely flabbergasted. Chica's smile grew even wider as she cleared the table of the garbage that had accumulated atop it, making space for her wide hips.

She jumped onto the table happily, her,er…'assets' bouncing with her.

Even after seeing her rather frightening endoskeleton face earlier that day, Mike couldn't help but blush.

"I, er, jus' wanted ta thank you fer everythin' ya did faw me there, Mike." She began, unusually quiet for a change. Mike appreciated the gesture, but he was still very conscious of the fact that there _were_, in fact, **killer robots **besides Chica that were out to get him.

"Look, Chica, I appreciate you taking the time out of your night to, er, thank me, but this may be a bad time." Mike hesitantly said, briefly looking down to check the Show Stage.

"Don't warry, Mikey-boy. Freddy n' Bawnnie'll steer clear'a ya whilst ah'm here, since they care 'bout me. And Fawxy? Weeell, I don't think he'll be comin' out tanight." Chica said, winking at him knowingly.

Hesitantly, Mike accepted her reasoning, ignoring the tense knot that had built up in his stomach.

Surprisingly enough, just like Chica had predicted, Bonnie and Freddy both stayed a few rooms away and Foxy stayed behind his curtain as they talked long into the night. The battered old pirate hadn't even begun to peek out yet. It was already 4:36AM, too! This would be a piece of cake!

Of course, Mike didn't know about It.

'Pop Goes the Weasel' began to play in the Kitchen as hydraulic whirring sounded once again. This time, it didn't stop. A noise that sounded like a butcher sharpening his knives resounded throughout the whole room.

A large, broad black hand slowly pushed open the Kitchen door, looking around the area with hollow eyes. A lipstick-coated mouth grinned in sadistic glee.

It's white, heavily made-up face, cheeks coated in blush, stared lovingly at It's serrated claws as It clacked them together, making a clinking noise.

_Looks like the gang forgot to make some noise._

None of the animatronics had visited the Kitchen. Foxy hadn't come out from behind that curtain of his, the coward. Oh well. Ugh, she had to do everything herself.

Looking down the path towards Mike's office, she began to mutter to herself.

"_**When the children are away, the Puppet shall play."**_

**A/N: Oh, boy, this was a tough one! I wasn't sure how I wanted to depict the Puppet, or even if I wanted to reveal her yet, but excitement got the best of me. What do you think of the femme fatale Puppet? Lawl. **

**So sorry about the wait, guys. School makes me exhausted, and when I'm exhausted…I don't write. Sorry again. I'm eager to upload this, so no shoutouts this time. Sorry! In any case, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and are hoping for more! :D **


	6. No Strings Attached - Part 2

And with those muttered words, the Puppet flopped weightlessly to the floor, assuming the posture of an insect. Her arms splayed off to her sides, bent unnaturally so that her enormous hands could reach the floor. Her legs, too, bent awkwardly, so that she walked on all-fours with a spider-like gait. She chuckled.

_I wonder if Mike enjoyed my little visit earlier? _She pondered maliciously to herself, before clearing the thought from her mind and beginning to scuttle down the East Hall, her metal claws making a harsh _clink_ whenever they came in contact with the checkered tiles that the pizzeria's flooring consisted of.

Mike stopped mid-sentence. He had been speaking to Chica about how he'd felt when he'd had to leave Freddy's behind and continue on with his life, but he could have sworn he heard something. Some sort of tinkling noise, it sounded like.

He hesitantly looked at his East side door, anxiety making him tremble slightly.

"Mike? Uh, Mikey-boy? Ya alright dere?" Chica slowly asked, beginning to get anxious herself. Truth be told, she wasn't sure if she really _did_ know what Freddy, Bonnie or Foxy would do if they were feeling brave tonight. Foxy had become immensely hostile the last time, and he hadn't even looked like he was under the influence of the night. Who could say what Freddy would do whilst he, quite obviously, was?

The thought gnawed at her.

As a result, she, too, felt like gnawing on something.

"I'm gunna go t' the Kitchen for a sec, a'ight, Mike?" Chica quietly said, her voice barely having risen beyond muttering levels of quietness as she broke the tense silence that Mike had established in the small office room. Mike looked back at her with an air of both worry and fear, finally peeling his eyes away from the door. Whatever had made that noise had long stopped making it now, but nonetheless, it didn't hurt to make sure.

"What?! Are you insane?! Aren't Freddy and Bonnie still hostile? And you're gonna LEAVE me with them?!" Mike frantically whisper-yelled, his eyes beginning to look somewhat like egg-whites to Chica due to how round and wide they had become. Of course, thinking about that helped little with quelling her hunger.

Like a child begging their parent for something, Chica looked at Mike intently, the irises of her innocent purple eyes beginning to expand, slowly at first, before they were close to engulfing the entirety of the whites of her eyes. Mike instantly caught on to what she was attempting to do, immediately proceeding to harshly deny her of her wishes. He tried his hardest not to look the chicken opposite him in the eyes for too long, lest he be hypnotised by their charm.

"Pleeeeaaaase, Michael?" Chica pleaded, using the name that Mike's ex-girlfriend used to convince him to do anything she desired. Not that Chica had known that; she had just thought use of formal names sounded more desperate. That, and 'Michael' sounded far more seductive than 'Mike'. She even uttered it in a similar fashion to how Mike's ex had, fluttering her eyelids delicately whilst nearly breathing his name.

Mike felt something stir within him at her pleas, but ignored it. What he could not ignore, however, was the desperate animatronic that sat in front of him. She had now begun to rest one leg on the other, looking both casual and strangely alluring.

Mike bit his lip, looking away and shutting his eyes. He sighed. He supposed that he could handle being left alone; it was only going to be for a few minutes, after all. He had been able to fend off Freddy, Bonnie and Foxy for three nights already, so a few minutes of the same treatment wouldn't be too bad, surely.

With this in mind, Mike begrudgingly began to mutter, now glum. "Alright, alright. Go…make yourself a sandwich or something, I dunno. Just…please, be back soon."

He looked to Chica, whom appeared to be surprised at how he actively seemed to _want _her back. For the past four hours, she'd been worrying about whether or not she should have left him to his little gizmos and gadgets when she needn't have at all! Mike could be so confusing sometimes.

She didn't mind though.

She simply nodded at him and smiled, walking out through the West door; apparently, she felt like taking the long way rather than risking a run-in with whatever had been making the noise that had startled Mike so badly.

Mike dragged a hand down his face, wiping off the beads of sweat that had begun to accumulate on his brow. He checked his tablet, watching Chica casually walk through the Party Room. She briefly stopped to readjust a few party hats that had been laid on the table, standing them up again after – presumably – some kids had knocked them over during the day.

Wait.

Freddy's had been closed that day.

What had tipped the hats over?

Suddenly, Mike began to feel very, very frightened indeed.

In a fit of paranoia, he yanked his tablet off of his lap, holding it ever closer to his panicked face. He did a once-over of all the cameras, taking note of both Chica's progress and whether or not any of the others were feeling lucky.

Nothing.

Nothing to be worried about. He was probably going crazy, for crying out loud. Welp, he'd rather go crazy than die horribly, in any case. Oy, he was gonna get a Hell of a lot of flak from Chica for wasting power. Mike really wasn't in the mood for a Bostonian's idea of a lecture, especially not at 4:52AM.

Huffing, Mike begrudgingly lowered his tablet once more.

Then, just as quickly, he leapt back in his chair, screaming erratically for his animatronic friend, praying she could hear him.

The…the thing. The thing from his dream. It was THERE. It was THERE, RIGHT in front of him, and he could do nothing about it. Claws like razors swung limply at its sides as it seemed to chuckle, the noise that it emitted from its throat bearing a vague resemblance. In actuality, it seemed like a raspy choking noise.

"Hello, Mike." It said simply, its voice seeming to differ from its dream counterpart, if only slightly. Instead of being a purely masculine boom, its voice had a slight feminine undertone to it; a lot like the voice that women get when artificially deepening theirs. Mike didn't know whether to call it a she or a he.

"Hello, er…guy." Mike fumbled, tripping over his words from nervousness. He was petrified, honestly. He couldn't help but wonder whether or not the apparent animatronic would show him what he had seen in his dream once more or not.

It clacked its steel claws together, seeming to enjoy the deceptively gentle noise. It stared at them, fixated, but pursued the conversation as it continued clacking.

"So, a little birdy told me that you are one reluctant young man. Would that be correct?" The unnerving entity stated simply, hiding obvious anger behind its sweet tone of voice. The Puppet had had enough of Mike's bullcrap over the course of these past few nights to last her a lifetime. Or ten. It had felt like it had been that long since The Incident, in any case.

She angled her head upwards slightly, looking up from her claws to stare at Mike with a hollow gaze as he fumbled for an answer.

"Bah-uh, I'm, er, I'm sorry?" Mike bumbled, caught off-guard by the unspecific question.

She did not like that.

_Nobody_ had the right to talk to her so casually. _NOBODY. _It was either Ma'am, Madam or Your Opulence. How Mike the Tyke had missed the memo, she would never know.

Her seemingly solid porcelain smile contorted horrifically into a mask of pure rage in the blink of an eye, her blushed cheeks seeming to blacken for but a second. She raked a vehement claw across Mike's cheek, savouring his cry of shock and pain.

He smacked onto the floor, cradling his cheek pathetically as he attempted to ward off the pain. Looking up at the psychopathic perpetrator pitifully, Mike couldn't help but begin to crawl backwards frantically with his left arm, still covering his gash with his right.

The shadowy animatronic simply followed him slowly; deliberately, even. Like a predator sizing up their prey.

"I _mean_ that you just don't seem to want to join us, Mike." The slender figure hissed.

Long stride after long stride, the Puppet followed the hilariously scrambling night guard, purposely stepping in the small puddles of blood he had created. She fought to hide her delighted grin as she saw Mike's eyes widen at her in dismay, his hand groping uselessly at the solid steel wall behind him. It seemed he had been expecting to end up by the door to make a quick escape.

As she had previously thought. Pathetic.

She knew, from years of experience, and she _did_ mean _**years**_, that even if he somehow had managed to outwit her tremendous mind and escape the room, he would never have been able to outrun her. She was built like an athlete, in her opinion; with the looks to match, for sure. She remembered smugly all the times that she had made Freddy call her beautiful.

Good times. She'd have to remind herself to do that again at some point. She always found it fun to beat the enormous bear to a teeny-tiny, furry little pulp and get a compliment for her troubles.

Enthralled in all of her self-praise and vain thoughts, the Puppet didn't really take much note of how Mike had slowly gotten up whilst she had been in her trance-like state. Bah, he'd be a piece of pie to catch, anyways.

What _did _snap her back to a jarring reality, however, was the swift kick that he sent to her spindly bug legs.

Her knees buckled almost instantly, her artificial legs being bent forwards abnormally. She screeched wildly, flailing her scythe-like claws around in a near-animalistic fashion. As her paperlike body thwacked onto the floor soundlessly, her metal claws scraped along the equally-metallic tiles. The movement elicited a merciless scraping noise, filling both Mike and his black and white assailant's ears with the loud scratching noise.

The Puppet did not take kindly to the horrid sound, slamming her hands onto the sides of her head, where her ears would be if she had any, and howled in pain, her vision being clouded with faulty binary coding that flew across her line of sight at rapid intervals.

Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, Mike bolted out of the office through the West door, not caring about whether or not he would run into Bonnie. He checked his watch, praying for it to nearly be 6:00AM. Unfortunately, he had no such luck.

5:02AM. He now had to survive for another full hour whilst being pursued by Chuckles the masochistic clown. Great. That was just peachy.

Mike rolled his eyes, exasperated, as he burst through the doors at the far end of the hallway. Luckily, he'd had the sense to take his tablet with him; he had managed to nab it after it fell to the floor as a result of his masked attacker arranging the meeting between its claws and his face. In a rare burst of luck in Mike's favour, it had been unharmed by the fall.

He winced as the result of said encounter began to burn slightly, beginning to feel a warm liquid begin to trickle down his cheek. Mike ignored it, however. He _needed _to get Chica. If he could do anything, it would be to at least warn her. He would rather not have to gaze down at her sliced, beaten face again.

He wouldn't let her get to that stage of pain. He couldn't bring himself to allow her to be harmed.

He'd rather die than let anybody hurt _his_ Chica.

Darting through the Party Room, Mike saw Bonnie in his peripheral vision. Bonnie, too, saw him. Mike sped up slightly, his legs pumping desperately and carrying him ever-further towards the now fully-aware purple bunny.

He hunched over just as he skimmed by the lumbering animatronic, Bonnie's beefy paws just missing him as he lurched his heavy body towards Mike in an attempt to grab him.

Mike laughed to himself, more out of relief than anything.

_Thank God that worked. _He thought gleefully to himself, hearing the head hydraulics of the large bunny turn to look at him as he bolted straight towards the Kitchen doors. Honestly, he had expected Bonnie the bunny to be a little lighter on his toes. Not that he was complaining, of course.

Not daring to look behind him, Mike smacked open the Kitchen doors without hesitation, entering through the side entrance in the Party Room. He could hear the heavy clunking of Bonnie's large feet behind him as he bathed himself in the darkness of the foul-smelling room. He squinted, frantically grabbing at air in an attempt at locating his chicken accomplice.

Mike began to panic after a few seconds had passed, still unable to find Chica in the near pitch-black room of the pizzeria. This was all completely alien to him; he hadn't even thought about exploring this room during his little tours of duty, deeming it too unknown and dangerous to set foot in alone.

That was during the day.

He was now essentially blind in a room that he had never been in before in his _life,_ and all whilst there were killer robots out to get him. When they were at their most deadly.

Alone.

This was exactly what he had been trying to avoid, but he simply failed to stop and think about that. He had been too wrapped up in his delusions of bravado and saving his friend to fully come to grips with what he had done, and now it was too late.

Mike heard the door creak open once more behind him, the slightest sliver of blue light illuminating the dark room briefly. Why hadn't Mike thought to grab his torch?!

_Too late now, _he regretfully surmised.

And now Bonnie was, yet again, going to attempt to nab him and stuff him. What joy. Turning around readily, facing the source of the large shadow that had been stretched across the floor, Mike hesitated.

_Freddy?!_

Mike noticed his own hesitation and mentally reprimanded himself for it. He was just lucky that Freddy, too, had stopped briefly, otherwise that split-second pause could have cost the night guard his life.

Mike looked up at Freddy's large form, noting his lack of a vacant gaze in return. Bonnie was nowhere to be seen behind his hulking brown frame. It was at that point that Mike realised that had Freddy gone full animatronic, he would _never _hesitate in carrying out his objectives.

It sunk in.

Mike stood, waiting; he prayed that his assumption was correct.

Freddy, too, looked at Mike, tilting his enormous head slightly to the left as he bore into the smaller man's deep blue eyes with his haunting green ones. Then, slowly, Freddy raised an arm. However, it was not directed at Mike - his thick fingers closed around the brim of his small top hat, tipping it forwards slightly at him before Freddy slid it back to where it had been previously.

"Always a pleasure, Mike." He jovially uttered, beaming at the young night guard.

Freddy had no time to react as a relieved and overjoyed blur of 'Security' logos smacked into his round stomach, hugging the startled bear tightly. Mike said nothing for a few seconds, simply allowing himself the little escape from the land of nightmares that surrounded him.

Freddy stood, unmoving and wide eyed, for a fair amount of time before he finally caved in and hugged Mike back. He rested his heavy chin on the top of Mike's cap, relieved at finding his friend alive and well. Mike, too, felt very much the same.

However, for all the stress that left the two old friends' minds, there seemed to only be ever-more mounting up in the brain of a certain other animatronic.

The Puppet had finally recovered from her painful glitch, having been forced to simply lie on the tiled floor with her eyes clenched shut and her hands covering her pained audio receptors. God, why did they have to be so sensitive?! Of all the things she could have gotten, she'd been given the bloody oversensitive hearing. Yeah, perfect.

Being made of metal and living in an all-metal environment, she'd _never _seen anything wrong with THAT idea. Not at all.

Infuriated beyond measure, the spindly robot reluctantly rose from the hard, unforgiving floor, wobbling slightly on her stilt-like legs. The same stilt-like legs that had made her lose track of easy prey. Goddammit, sometimes she hated her body.

It was at times like these that the Puppet found herself wishing for her old body back.

Wait. No. Don't say that, girl. You know your body is perfect. Top-notch. One-of-a-kind and best-of-its-kind.

Despite her mental encouragement, she found herself doubting her abilities. Mike was gone now, and she hadn't seen where he'd went. She knew she shouldn't be thinking so negatively, but she couldn't help herself. All of that confidence, and for what?

She had been bested by a _human_, of all things. Ugh.

Oh, well. The best cold-blooded killers knew that one should never dwell on a subject for too long, lest they get side-tracked, and she was definitely one of the best.

Pushing her negative thoughts aside, she began to slink out of Mike's office, pacing through the East door.

_Time to think like the victim._

Mike and Freddy both perked up at the sound of an unnervingly feminine scream from somewhere on the other side of the building. Instantly releasing one another, Mike knew exactly who the voice belonged to.

"Chica!" He yelled, petrified at the prospect of already breaking his personal promise to the unfortunate chicken. Lately, she seemed to be the recipient of all sorts of punishment, and Mike didn't like it at all. He was going to put a stop to it, in any case.

Bolting out of the Kitchen after Freddy lit the way with his glowing eyes, trailing behind Mike only slightly as he ran at a startlingly fast speed for such a large, bulky bear, Mike found himself in the very same hallway that he had ran down to bait Foxy into the Kitchen the night before. Somehow, in some odd way, Mike had a hunch that he was responsible for the unleashing of the white-faced phantom, of whom was probably giving chase right about now.

Running through the pizzeria desperately, Mike carelessly bolted through Pirate's Cove, as did Freddy, neither of them noticing the yellow eye that watched them pass from behind the curtain. Foxy stared at the two figures pass regretfully as he morosely closed the curtain once more.

The pirate walked back into his cove, relishing the cover that the darkness gave him and bottling up his regret. Even if he couldn't exactly kill Mike, mostly thanks to the Puppet's…odd tactic of coercing it's 'henchmen' into action, he could do this.

He sat down at the far right corner of the small, closed-off hovel, turning his head to the left and scowling.

"O-Oh, shu-shut up. I-I didn-didn't exac-exactly ge-get a fig-fighti-fightin' chance at-at-a-at refusi-sin'." He glowered as he stared at Chica, whom had her beak tied up with rope and stuffed with her own signature cupcake as well as having had her arms and legs bound together.

She muffled something at Foxy through the makeshift gag, him seeming to understand.

"Whff Fuddy un Myk fmd mm, yurm unna mee im mig mubble!"

"Y-Ye be r-ri-right 'b-'bout tha-that, lass-lassie. Bu-but that's-that's IF-IF they-ey find y-ye. No-not t' men-mention, fe-fer now, a-at-at least, I-I ha-have-ave a M-MOR-ORE than val-aluable all-ally o-on my si-side. P-Plus, wh-whate-ever they d-do ta m-me 'f t-they fi-find ye'l-ll be nu-null n' vo-void if-if yer d-dead by-by the ti-time they ar-rive." The buccaneer confidently snarled in return before laughing heartily.

_Once a traitah, always a traitah. _Chica thought to herself loathingly, carefully watching her abductor, whom had begun to grin like a jackal at her anguish.

Mike and Freddy checked every room in the pizzeria, wasting no time dawdling. Then they checked them again.

And again.

Then once more.

_Where the Hell was Chica?!_

Mike had begun to panic by this point, repeatedly muttering the word 'No' to himself over and over again as every room they checked was empty, save for finding Bonnie standing completely idle in the Storage Room. That weird puppet thing hadn't showed up since he had kicked it in the knee, though, so there was that to be thankful for.

Slowly lumbering through Pirate's Cove once more, the adrenaline having left his veins, Mike had all but lost hope. Freddy hated to admit it, but he had too. There was no way that Chica could still be around; they'd checked every room. They'd even checked _outside_, half-expecting the missing chicken to be lying on the slightly snowy floor shivering near the entrance doors.

Nope.

She had just…vanished.

Mike was more than ready to start blaming the mysterious animatronic. It seemed like the kidnapping type. The thing was definitely sadistic enough, for sure.

It was definitely a possibility. It could have even, dare he say it, torn her apart. It had the claws for it, and certainly the will to. It wouldn't have been a very drastic assumption, what with how it had treated _hi-_

His thought process was interrupted by a harsh jab to the rib by Freddy.

"Mike? Listen." The brown behemoth whispered, quietly as he dared, before pricking his round ears up above the rim of his top hat; he was listening out for something. Mike, too, listened, silencing his brain's erratic thought process for a minute.

A faint muffling sounded from behind the purple curtain, like someone trying to talk with their mouth full. It sounded feminine.

Both Mike and Freddy's eyes unanimously widened to a size that could put a saucer to shame as they slowly turned their heads to face each other, mouths hanging open limply.

"PIRATE COVE!" They whisper-yelled to one another, before promptly turning back towards the star-studded curtain that faced them entirely. Freddy's eyes briefly shifted to Mike, then back to the curtain. Mike simply nodded.

_On three._ The fuzzy animatronic signalled, holding up three pudgy fingers to Mike.

_One._ He lowered a sausage-like finger as Mike turned to the curtain, bracing himself.

_Two. _Another brown digit was lowered as Mike hesitantly began to reach out to the curtain, more than ready to yank it back.

_Foxy, you're dead when I get my hands on you. _Mike scowled to himself, waggling his fingers in preparation.

_Three._ The final finger was lowered.

Mike gripped the curtain.

A sharp steel hook shot out above him as he moved to pull the flimsy material away.

"NO!" Freddy boomed, his arm shooting out like a bullet, blocking the hook's path at the last second as it sliced into his thick suit.

A sizeable gash was carved into the bear's arm as he yowled in immense amounts of pain. Mike, startled, carried out the first action that popped into his mind; he viciously leapt at the owner of the hook, slamming into Foxy's unprepared orange body behind the curtain.

As the fox fell backwards, gravity forcefully yanked his hook out of Freddy's arm. Freddy's hand darted to his wound before the pain was replaced by something…_new._

Excitement? No. Freddy had never been one for getting thrilled easily. Happiness? Certainly not. Adrenaline? Well, it could have been, if he'd had any blood vessels.

Anger?

Yes. That was it.

Foxy scowled at Mike, forcefully pushing him off of his frail form with surprising strength. Mike rolled, attempting to get back up, before he faltered as he saw Chica, looking into his eyes pleadingly from the other side of the room.

That falter cost him dearly.

Mike heard the slicing of a blade through air as he looked back to Foxy, being caught off-guard by the sight of a thick, gleaming hook careening towards his face alarmingly quickly.

Mike flinched before he heard an almighty roar; one that did _not _come from Foxy. The fox in question turned towards the source of the noise, startled senseless, before a gigantic mass of heaving bulk and fur slammed into him like a raging bull.

The pirate once again smashed to the floor, a few bolts falling off of his endoskeleton at the force of Freddy's vindictive rage. Foxy looked up at the ringleader of the group in horror, attempting to crawl away. Freddy blinked once, his eyes turning almost entirely to an unholy shade of black as he glared daggers at the other animal. Tiny green pupils were all that remained of his once kind eyes.

Even Chica, the damsel in distress, stared in terrified awe at Freddy's scarily sudden mood swing.

The huge, angered bear grabbed Foxy by his endoskeleton leg, yanking the dog towards him as Foxy screeched in pain. He could feel his leg being _pulled out of its socket_.

"**WHY DON'T YOU EVER LEARN, PIRATE?!" **Freddy thundered, his gentle, deep voice now a harsh, grating snarl. **"YOU THINK YOU'RE SO SMART, DON'T YOU? YOU'VE ALWAYS THOUGHT YOU WERE SMART!"**

"Fr-Fre-Freddy, pl-lease-"

"**DON'T YOU DARE SPEAK BACK TO ME, YOU SCUMMY PIECE OF SCRAP!"** The feral animatronic rumbled, sounding akin to the booming of a volcano. His top hat had tilted over his eyes, both from looking down in disgust at Foxy and from the pirate himself's vigorous panicked thrashing.

"**FIRST IT WAS THE GIRL, AND NOW YOU'RE TRYING TO KILL MY FRIEND?!"** Freddy exploded, now grabbing Foxy by the hole in his chest after pulling him towards himself and holding him up in the air with a single beefy arm. The sound of dense sheets of metal hitting one another reverberated around the room as Foxy kicked at Freddy's tree-trunk-like legs pathetically with his own feeble ones.

Mike was paralysed, petrified by what Freddy had become. He wanted to stop this, _all _of this, but he couldn't. he couldn't bring himself to move.

He merely checked his watch, praying for it to be on the cusp of 6:00AM.

5:48AM.

Just a little longer.

A little longer and then he could make Freddy apologise, beg for Foxy's forgiveness, and recover Chica. Everything would be fine, and nothing would go wrong. Not even the new arrival would be able to stop him. It couldn't stop _time_, after all. It was just another robot. Just anoth-

"_Well, well, well._"

Freddy stopped, his eyes instantly reverting back to their usual state. A viscous black substance had begun to dribble down his cheeks from his eyeholes, abruptly stopping upon his reversion. His eyes now held only dread within their vacant confines as Foxy's eyes widened in terror. He began to stutter frantically, disregarding Freddy's iron grip on his chest and pointing fearfully behind the immense bear.

Looking behind him, Freddy almost immediately received a slice to the face from three cleaver-like claws. It felt like he had been sliced across the face with a hatchet. He yowled in pain, stumbling backwards and dropping Foxy as he moved to cover his now 'bleeding' muzzle. Freddy's huge mouth opened for just enough time to allow his assailant to shove their large hand down his throat, wrapping itself around his endoskeleton mouth with a grip stronger than even his own.

"Tut, tut. Such a naughty boy, Freddy. You know what happens to those who misbehave, don't you?" The Puppet muttered darkly, its seemingly porcelain mouth now _most definitely _contorted into an expression of disgust at the pained bear.

Nonchalantly looking away from Freddy's anguished face, the Puppet raked her sharp claws along the bear's iron mouth before pushing him to the floor with an immense amount of strength; almost Herculean in power, in fact. Freddy slid along the floor slightly, his top hat rolling away, deep into the shadows.

The Puppet turned to Foxy, who still lay on the floor in a pathetic mess of fur and steel.

The animatronic whimpered, trying to once again crawl away.

The Puppet did not let him get far.

Leaping on him with far more ferocity than even Freddy would be able to muster, the blank-faced humanoid pinned Foxy's head to the ground as the pirate squeezed his eyes shut tightly, simply hoping for the pain to end quickly.

He emitted a dog-like whimpering noise as the Puppet raised its clawed arm, ready to strike.

Mike, too, found himself wanting to whimper – however, he wanted to whimper in surprise.

Bonnie slowly emerged from behind the purple curtain, his guitar raised above his head.

All eyes, save for the Puppet's, instantly became fixated on him.

He slowly raised a large, purple finger to his mouth, before carefully beginning to tip-toe towards the Puppet's turned back, guitar still raised.

Mike's breath was hitched in his throat as he watched the immeasurably tense scene that unfolded before him; even Chica had become as silent as a funeral procession, carefully watching in hopeful excitement.

Bonnie now stood right behind the Puppet, who continued brandishing her fearsome claws pompously. She turned to look at Foxy as she began to speak once more.

"This is what you get for defying me and my wishes." She fearsomely muttered, raising her striped arm ever higher.

Upon feeling her claws hit a hard, plastic surface, the Puppet curiously turned her head.

She saw a guitar flying towards her exposed face before her vision became consumed by darkness.

A loud crushing noise resounded throughout the room as Bonnie's guitar snapped in two from the force that he had created from hitting the Puppet's head. As she smacked onto the floor, limp, Mike astonishedly took note of how the guitar had left a sizable web-like crack across the skull-like porcelain-esque face of his dream monster.

The room was bathed in an astonished silence for but a few seconds.

Freddy shakily got up; he never took his eyes off of the limp form of the Puppet, lying motionlessly on the floor. He looked at Bonnie, before wrapping him up in a huge bear hug.

"I knew you'd snap out of it, Bon." He muttered into the bunny's large purple ears. Bonnie was too proud of himself to do anything but hug back, shyly tapping Freddy's back in a friendly gesture. Mike rapidly replaced Freddy as soon as he pulled away from Bonnie, frantically thanking him. Foxy simply slid into a corner of the room using his non-hook arm, leaving without a word being said. As quickly as he could, Mike practically flew towards Chica, unbinding her and holding her tightly, sobbing into her fluffy shoulder as he had two nights before.

Shocked, Chica could do nothing but hug back, blushing a furious crimson.

As 6:00AM passed by, Mike offered to help his friends, clearing everything in Pirate Cove up with them. Mike even managed to convince Freddy to apologise to Foxy, albeit whilst giving the pirate a vicious death stare as he did so.

After finally stuffing the Puppet into her box yet again, carelessly shoving her within its claustrophobic confines and re-winding it, Mike realised it was nearly time for the day-shift guard to get to work. 7:43AM.

Time for his goodbyes of the day.

The goodbyes this time around were brief, everyone having been rather stunned by what had transpired in Pirate Cove that night. Needless to say, it had been a surprisingly welcome blast of reality that had jarred Mike out of the surreal fantasy world that Freddy's had set itself up to be as of late.

Nonetheless, Chica gave Mike a kiss that was a little longer-lasting than usual as a reward for saving her, or at least trying to.

Mike was more than greatful.

The brawl in Pirate Cove had honed his survival instincts, and, most importantly, got him acquainted with the Puppet; he now at least had a vague idea of what its motives and attack styles were, and even how to fight it – to a degree, anyways.

What Freddy had yelled at Foxy whilst he had been enraged still bothered him immensely, though. What had he meant by 'First, the girl'?

_Oh, well. That's for another time_. Mike decided as he walked out of the pizzeria after hanging up his security gear, casually locking the door behind him and walking out into the welcoming rays of the morning sun.

Another thing that Mike would have to save for another time, he made sure to remind himself of…

was buying Bonnie a drink.

The sly bastard deserved one after all that.

**A/N: Whoo, was this one a blast to write! I had very few opportunities to write these past few weeks, but when I did, I made sure to make the most of it. ;3**

**So, what did you guys think of this chapter? I was a lot more casual whilst writing this one than I was with the last one; I realised I shouldn't be rushing to mass-produce chapters, otherwise the quality will start to dwindle. Please, guys, don't hesitate to tell me if you think that's been happening lately. It will knock some sense into me and get me working harder, I assure you.**

**This one, in my opinion, is my darkest chapter yet. As well as my most action-packed one, may I add. And, boy, did it take a lot out of me! I'm relieved to get this done just in time for the weekends, though. I really do like this chapter, but you guys tell me if you think some things could be improved. I could use the critique, really. Although, leaving some more wonderfully kind reviews wouldn't bother me at all, either! :B**

**Now, then, what (some of) you have been waiting for…**

**SHOUT…**

**OUUUUUTS!**

**Chapter 5 Guests:**

**Dudes/Dudettes, you're awesome. Both of your reviews made me smile. And, don't worry, my baby-voiced robotic mongrel friend, I won't forget! **

**Purest of the Hearts:**

**Mike is a very mean fellow when he needs to be. He's a big ol' softie on the inside, though. 3**

**WhoaLookIt'sFoxyThePirate:**

**Aw, shucks! Yer makin' me blush. /Cheeks reddening/**

**Foxyxchicaforev:**

**Indeed! The Puppet is not so much a jolly good fellow, rather a masochistic horrid lady :P**

**Solaris456:**

**I hope this was enough, man. Your review really made me want to finish this chapter up quickly; I hate to keep my readers waiting for too long. :C**

**Godzilla King of Monsters:**

**I-I didn't, er, 'hurt' Ch-Chica this chapter, er, per-se, oh-almighty-atomic-lizard of all-empowering doom…*Gulp***

**Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! I can't wait to get to work on the next one! :D**


	7. Secrets Once Hidden

Mike spent a lot of his time before the afternoon simply sitting down in his filthy, run-down chair in his filthy, run-down flat, contemplating the events that had transpired only a matter of hours ago. He pondered various things as he simply sat, occasionally breaking the intense stare he held over the yellowed wall opposite him to shake off the occasional bug that clambered onto his arms from his seat.

It got to a point where he could begin to hear them coming; the chair would emit a near-silent ruffling noise, a slight lump beginning to move towards the large hole in the chair's armrest. It had been around 8:00AM when Mike had begun his little reverie. It was now 1:04PM. Mike only realised when he moved to crush yet another bug that seemed to be feeling lucky, his eyes catching a glimpse of his alarm clock.

His reddened, bloodshot eyes widened in surprise, having felt like he had only been sitting there for about an hour. Scratching his brittle stubble, Mike surmised it was about time for breakfast. His stomach whole-heartedly agreed with him promptly thereafter, rumbling with fervour. Mike simply looked down at the source of the sound, chuckling to himself as he walked over to his single shelf of food.

He swivelled his head towards the corner of the room, staring pointedly at where he had planned on putting a fridge about three months ago.

_It had only been about a hundred dollars away back then. What happened? _He thought to himself regretfully, licking his dry, chapped lips. It was about then that it had occurred to him; he hadn't had a drink for about thirteen hours. Surprised at his own thirst, Mike left the shelf for but a second, moving to pour himself a glass of water.

Instead, he was, once again, staring fixatedly at nothing. Well, a drained tap, but it was near enough nothing.

It seemed all those water bills he'd been reluctant in paying had finally returned to bite him on the ass. He was completely out.

Mike tried to use his shower; nothing. Great. Just great.

_Just what I need._ Mike thought frustratedly to himself, feeling the sweat that had accumulated under his armpits begin to make his clothes stick to his skin.

Peeling his shirt off of his underarms for the umpteenth time that _minute_, Mike returned to his shelf. He simply looked at it for a few seconds, attempting to calm himself down as he glared at the peeling, softened wooden doors that held the entirety of his food supply. He grabbed the greened wooden handle that sat right on top of its mouldy surface, feeling it squelch slightly in his grasp from years upon years of decay.

Pulling the door open, Mike found only a beaker of salt, the white grains being contaminated by multiple flecks of filth and dirt that had begun to nestle in amongst them, as if they were attempting to avoid detection from Mike's angered eyes. Opening the door next to it, Mike found what looked like an empty energy bar wrapper.

Picking the wrapper up, Mike realised that there was something inside. Squeezing slightly, he watched in disgust as what was essentially _paste _squelched out from within the packet, having been a chocolate bar of some sort in a previous life. Mike didn't want to know how long it had been lurking within that shelf. He could handle curdled milk, if only barely, but this? No way. Not a chance in Hell.

Remorselessly chucking the paste in the bin, Mike nearly gagged as he saw it simply splat onto the side of the bag and stay there.

It didn't slide down to the bottom, like he had expected it to. It simply hit the side of the bin initially, then just stuck there. It didn't look like it would be peeling or falling off anytime soon, either. Turning away from the bin once more, Mike's stomach rumbled again. This time it had increased in its intensity by about ten-fold.

Clutching his belly in hunger, Mike felt slightly woozy. He needed to eat _something_. Preferably as soon as he possibly could. Then it struck him, and he felt like a huge idiot for not thinking of it beforehand.

He worked at a pizza parlour.

Pizza parlours served pizza.

Pizza was food.

Employees ate free.

Mike did not hesitate in bolting out of the door, grabbing his leather jacket on the way out. He didn't care how he looked to others - he just needed to feel the sweet sensation of a warm pizza slipping down his gullet.

Getting into his busted-up Cadillac Cimarron, Mike shuffled awkwardly as he sat down to avoid damaging the old, battered car any further. The engine gave off a spluttery, raspy growl as the car was started up, possibly for the thousandth time in its arduously long life. Mike practically crushed the pedals with his foot, causing the car to zoom out of his cramped driveway and onto the road.

The car, which had most likely been around long enough to bear witness to World War One, soon slowed down of its own accord due to its aged engine not being able to handle the strain. It soon halted almost entirely, the car only moving in short bursts as the exhaust pipe coughed out black smoke in big puffs the whole way. Ugh, why hadn't he just waited for the bus, like he normally did? There was a reason Mike kept this hunk of garbage locked away.

He should've eaten the damn key. He was hungry enough, for sure.

Finally halting in front of the pizzeria as his stomach began roaring once more, Mike began to think about Chica as a result of his thoughts on various food products. He couldn't help but smile to himself as memories of the voluptuous chicken giving him a not-so-literal peck on the cheek arose in his mind's eye, a blush once again fighting its way up to his cheeks.

Chica was a good friend, but damn if she wasn't cute.

Mike didn't quite understand why he was blushing; she was a friend to him, and, well, he had kind of helped in saving her life. He figured he _deserved_ a kiss, if anything. Nonetheless, he still found himself feeling quite a bit like a tomato whenever he thought about it.

_Dammit, brain! Don't make me think about food – or Chica - at a time like this!_

Barging through the front doors, Mike found that Freddy's was, once again, in full-swing. Parties, gleeful children and huffing, tired parents spanned the whole building. Well, except a select few rooms, of course. Freddy and the gang were once again up on stage, filling the Party Room with the sound of their synthetic voices.

Mike locked eyes with Freddy from across the room for a few seconds; happiness was evident on the bear's large face. He, like Mike, seemed to be relieved at being able to get Chica back.

Mike quickly noticed that Bonnie was, as per usual, standing alongside Freddy. However, he was not toting his guitar, instead simply opting to sing alongside the large mammal. As a result, Freddy and his band were singing without any form of backing track, being forced to improvise.

Freddy was using his in-built audio emitters to play a song similar to Toreador March, his eyes pulsating with light whenever a note was played. Mike was immediately jarred back into reality by the sound of his stomach grumbling yet again, taking his eyes off of the singing animals and groaning in pain.

Dashing to an unoccupied seat, Mike almost immediately raised his hand, gaining the attention of one of the few 'waiters' that had been patrolling from table to table. He was a teenager; he looked as if he really wanted to be anywhere _but_ the pizzeria at that point in time, his brown bangs covering one of his eyes slightly as they drooped in boredom. His glum expression and overall grim appearance conflicted heavily with the brightly coloured uniform he was wearing.

As he approached Mike, he noticed that he did not have any children with him. Immediately the teenager's already half-lidded eyes narrowed ever-further in suspicion, his straight face becoming patronising almost instantly.

"You, er, got any kids there…pal?" The adolescent muttered, his voice making it sound as if he were still donning his expression of boredom as he spoke monotonously. Mike noted how the kid's grip tightened around the pen and notepad that he was carrying around subtly. He was on edge, it seemed.

"No, I don't…pal?" Mike replied awkwardly, unsure of what he could say that would avoid making him look like a child molester. He twiddled his thumbs awkwardly, grinning toothily at the younger man. Looking at the boy's nametag, he saw that his name was Hugo.

Hugo looked at Mike for a few seconds, his visible eye still narrowed, before jotting something down in his notepad. Mike attempted to crane his head forward to get a better look at it, but the teen noticed and hunched over the page he was scribbling on, turning away. Mike simply deflated back into his seat, annoyed. The stupid kid could've been writing freakin' _anything_ in there.

"Listen, I'm just here for the food. I'm starved, man." Mike pleaded desperately, leaning towards the confused employee slightly. He scrambled for the keys to the pizzeria that his employer had given him those long four nights ago, holding them up to the boy's face triumphantly and waggling them, letting the jingling noise reach his ears.

"I'm a night guard here. I-If you want, I can show you my I.D-" Mike continued, turning to get out of his chair and retrieve his body warmer. Hugo held out his arm tiredly, Mike noticing how it seemed almost deflated as the teen's arm stretched towards him.

"No, no, no! Er, don't worry about it! Look, what is it that you want, man?" He uttered exasperatedly, huffing and puffing impatiently as Mike chose the toppings on his pizza. Once he'd listed them all off, and the teenager had wrote it all down, Mike eagerly waited for his order to arrive as the young man disappeared down the long hallway that led to the Kitchen, dragging his feet along the floor as he went.

Noticing this, Mike's natural sense of insatiable curiosity kicked in. Looking down the hallway, Mike noticed that the Kitchen lights were still off, despite the work day having begun hours beforehand. Turning around in his seat and standing up slightly in his seat, so as to get a better look, Mike watched carefully as Hugo stopped in front of the double doors, knocking out a brief tune on the hard surface.

After mere seconds, the door opened just an inch; just enough for a clawed hand to reach through the dark crack and snatch the notepad that the boy was holding clean out of his hands in one fell swoop, quickly retreating back into the darkness and shutting the door once again.

Mike's jaw hung open at this, too shocked to think of anything to say. As the young waiter began to walk back towards the Party Room, turning to face Mike, he took note of the older man's expression from the other side of the room and seemed surprised at being noticed. Briskly walking straight back to the night guard, travelling in an uncertain bee-line back to his table, Hugo stopped next to him. He wrung his hands nervously, granting Mike with an awkward silence.

He was obviously trying to think of some sort of reason as to why there would be a creature with serrated claws lurking around in the kitchen area of a children's restaurant. Surprisingly shortly afterwards, the boy opened his mouth to speak.

"Th-That, er, was the…chef. Y-Yeah, uh, the chef. We, eh, don't really need to use p-people, ahem, since, erm, animatronics take l-less time to train and are, in the long run, ch-cheaper. Yeah, that sounds good." The waiter stuttered out, seemingly satisfied with himself despite his blatant nervousness. He flashed a false grin at Mike.

Mike simply stared, entirely unconvinced.

_I recognise those claws._

The young man before him seemed to melt under his customer's patronising glare, shrinking into himself slightly as he hunched over almost imperceptively. He seemed to be doing everything in his power to avoid eye-contact with the larger man as he began to rub at his arms nervously.

"Y-Your, er, order will be here momentarily…s-sir." The boy trembled, quickly spinning on his heel and rapidly walking away. Suddenly this guy didn't seem like such a clueless customer any more. The bastard was obviously in on something, and Hugo didn't like it.

What would he tell Chef?

It had told him to keep all of this a secret, after all. _Nobody _could afford to know what went on behind those double doors; if somebody knew something they shouldn't have about this place, the teen had begun to notice rather early on, they promptly ended up being found dismembered in one of the dustbins just outside the building, or looking like a crushed melon inside one of the animatronic suits, only a week or so later.

All of the unexplained deaths were starting to catch up to the restaurant; it would probably be closed within the year, what with how it was currently faring.

The boy simply couldn't wait for that day.

Until then, though, he would just have to stick to the shadows and try not to slip up. Chef didn't like mistakes.

Approximately six hours prior to the teenage waiter's agonisingly awkward conversation with the pizzeria's latest night guard, one would have been able to hear a grating groaning sound emanating from the Kitchen area. If one had opened the door at around that time, they would have come face-to-face with a groggy, tired, and incredibly annoyed Puppet.

Having just awoken from unconsciousness, the spindly animatronic in question rubbed her throbbing forehead, emitting a deep groan of pain. It felt like she was going through what was possibly the worst hangover of her long, long life – and she didn't like that.

Continuing to rub her aching cranium for a few more minutes, it was not long before she finally regained some of her focus. As a result, she quickly stopped her rubbing, eyes widening slightly. She slowly continued massaging after a few seconds of hesitation, beginning to put more pressure on her forehead, paying close attention to the feel of the – normally – smooth surface.

Mere seconds passed before she felt a series of thin, deep indentations on her white dome.

Gasping, the Puppet frantically crawled over to the kitchen counter closest to where she had been slumped over in her music box, opting to simply slide out of the automated containment unit rather than going to the effort to lift up the lid.

She stared into the reflective surface, more than a hint of disbelief evident on her pale features; they almost seemed to become even paler as she continued to gaze down at the counter. She saw how the cracks along her face branched off in a multitude of directions, creating an almost web-like effect.

They stretched their way across her left eye, giving her what would seem to be a permanent scar. She stroked at the cracks uselessly, whimpering slightly as she traced their vein-like path along the contours of her shining head.

_What had they done to her?!_

All she'd been able to remember was how she had been just about ready to tear Foxy to little ginger pirate nuggets, felt something hard on the tip of her claw, turned around, and saw-…

_A guitar._

_Oh, Bonnie, you zealous git._

Well, that was a quick investigation. The bunny could have at least been a bit more secretive about his attempt at assassinating her; could've at least used a microphone or something. Made her think it was Freddy. But no.

Nonetheless, she now knew that procrastinating in order to savour the kill next time would _not_ pay off, in any case. She now had to watch her back, it seemed.

What cruel irony.

She was a natural hunter; yet she was frightened of becoming the hunted. She knew she shouldn't have been scared, but she _was_ anyway. Despite her knowledge of the deepest, darkest fears of every animatronic in the pizzeria, not to mention those of Mr. Schmidt, she felt intimidated by the prospect of having the other animatronics realise there were more of them than there was her and deciding to gang up and finish what they'd started all those years ago.

An irrational thought, obviously.

But, strangely, so she felt, still entirely possible.

In any case, she knew now that she would have to pay the purple bunny a visit tonight; she would make sure to be _far_ less lenient than she had been with Foxy. Glaring at her reflection and watching it glare back, the Puppet uttered a single sentence under her raspy, choked breath.

"_Disobedience will _**not**_ be tolerated_."

She nestled down in the dark confines of the Kitchen, slumping over in the corner, as she awaited the beginning of the work day; only a few minutes now. She chuckled bitterly to herself in morbid satisfaction, imagining in her corrupted mind all the terrible things she could do the animatronic bunny that dared oppose her once midnight rolled in.

Mike looked down at the pizza that was placed in front of him, the cheese having been half-heartedly slapped onto the over-cooked dough. It dribbled down the sides of the pizza and made it stick to the plate. The night guard's lips curled in slight disgust, having expected a substantially tidier looking dish. Considering the place was a _pizzeria_, it would not have been illogical for Fazbear enterprises to focus primarily on their main serving option.

Looking up at his waiter, Mike gave him a questioning look almost immediately. As the teenager in question noticed this, he simply flashed the confused man with an unsure smile, walking away quickly.

Mike called out to him in an attempt to get him to come back, but quickly realised it was a fruitless endeavour. Sighing to himself, Mike hesitantly reached for one of the smaller slices of the pizza, giving it a firm tug. When it did not budge from the plate, he could do nothing but contort his face into one of concern; perhaps it would have been best to just ask his mom for his night guard lunch early.

_Too late now, I suppose._ Mike regretfully thought to himself as he eyed the 'pizza' warily for a few seconds more, slowly peeling the slice off of its dish. Holding it up at eye-level and staring at it fixatedly, Mike couldn't help but curl his lips once more as his eyes were drawn to the putrid sight of the thick ropes of cheese dribbling down the sides of the dough, still somehow connected to the plate despite being lifted a good forty centimetres above it.

Eventually, however, he came to the conclusion that it was free food, and would _always_ be far better than a chocolate food paste, and so proceeded to carefully eat the whole thing, being mindful of the patches of cheese that were coloured a darker shade of yellow than the rest.

Mike had _never_ tasted anything as utterly putrid before in his life. He'd fished tuna bones out of garbage bins that had tasted better than that damn pizza. He really was right when he'd thought about how the pizza tasted like cardboard here; cardboard and _worse_. He ate it all, mostly due to how intensely hungry he was, but, in his opinion, the pizza tasted _far_ too meaty for Mike's tastes, amongst other things.

_Wait a minute._

_Wait just a __**goddamn**__ minute._

Meaty? Pizzas…were not supposed to be meaty. Not unless they had a meat topping, and Mike was _certain_ that his did not. Double-checking the insides of the stale-looking bites that he'd left over, reluctantly peeling away the seemingly mouldy cheese to get a better look, Mike was indeed lacking in meat products. Not even any pepperoni slices.

Mike thought back to his search for Chica from the night before; back when he had been clawing around blindly in the Kitchen.

He desperately strained his mind, attempting to remember everything he saw, smelt and felt in that accursed room. All his mind conjured up was darkness. Grunting to himself in annoyance, Mike pushed his brain to its very limit, reliving the nightmarish moment where he had been completely bathed in darkness, cold and alone, in a constant loop.

His mind wondered to the point where Freddy had opened the door. He remembered seeing something in the feeble light before rapidly turning around, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what it had been. He simply remembered that it was some sort of glinting light, and that was that.

Mike hit the table, frustrated out of his mind. He snarled to himself as he smacked his own forehead repeatedly, attempting to conjure up an image of what he had seen, but it was simply of no use.

Mike lay back in his seat, tilting his tired head to rest it on the cushiony backrest of the soft chair whilst closing his eyes. Running his fingers through his scruffy hair, the mentally exhausted night guard exhaled gently, his foul temperament being quelled slightly by the relieving feeling.

After a few minutes of this treatment, Mike opened his eyes and reluctantly sat upright in his seat once more. He noticed that somebody – presumably one of the waiters – had taken his plate of mouldy pizza. However, what really garnered his attention was the strange man standing on the other side of the Party Room, his gaze fixed on the children that played only a few metres away from him with an unnerving intensity.

Mike gasped, his heart taking over.

_Well, I AM s'posed to be a guard. I guess it's time to do my job._

Getting out of his seat, Mike began to march straight towards the man, whose eyes were focused entirely on the group of oblivious kids. Ignoring the surprised stare that Freddy was giving him out of the corner of his eyes, the guard gently pushed his way through the frolicking boys and girls, apologising frantically to countless parents as he did so.

As Mike clambered through the horde of children, the man finally noticed him. Locking eyes with the slightly taller man, Mike fixed him with an aggressive stare, baring his teeth like some sort of animal.

The man merely gave him a toothless grin, his lips curling up his cheeks.

As Mike drew ever-closer to the mysterious figure's position, said figure began to walk away, retaining his smile. Watching helplessly, still stuck in the raving crowd of kids, Mike could do nothing to stop him.

"H-Hey! Sir! Stop right there!" Mike yelled, causing many people to begin staring at him curiously.

The man kept walking.

Finally breaking through the crowd, Mike broke off into a sprint after the strange man. He just _knew_, in some subconscious manner, that he was up to something. He just didn't know what.

The night guard quickly came to realise that the man seemed to suffer from whatever Mr. British Employer Man suffered from, as he, too, seemed to have disappeared as soon as Mike gave chase. Looking around desperately for some sort of sign showing that he had indeed existed, Mike soon caught sight of a tall wooden door hidden way off in the corner of the room.

It was slightly ajar, showing that someone had either entered recently or just forgot to close it. Either way, Mike wasn't about to let such a suspicious looking guy get away scot-free.

Without hesitation, he approached the door, looking at it for a few moments. He had never seen it before; not in all of his years of going to Freddy's. There was a small sign on the door, which said 'Restricted Access – No Employees Allowed'. Sneering defiantly at the sign, Mike strode into the room without hesitation.

What he saw in there changed the way he would look at the pizzeria for as long as breath remained in his lungs.

As Mike walked into the room, Freddy and his band had no choice but to simply continue singing songs to the children that were currently jumping around the Show Stage, having had their legs rendered completely immobile during the day as a result of-…

Nevermind.

As a new show-tune began to swell within Freddy, Bonnie looked off to his left, staring past the enormous bear and focusing on Chica.

_Man, was she beautiful. _

Bonnie had been harbouring feelings for the spritely chicken for quite a few years; he had just never really acted on them. His fear of being rejected merged with the general air of quietness that he seemed to always maintain, and he had simply opted for keeping a silent watch over her instead as a result. Not to mention the fact that she may not have even liked him _back_.

He had begun to notice how, ever since Mike came into the picture and started talking to her, she had started to warm up to him – _big_ time. Bonnie recalled the events that had transpired only a day or two ago, when he had asked Chica why they couldn't simply scare Mike away from the pizzeria for good.

He'd disguised the motive behind his question as concern for the young man's safety back then, but he quickly came to realise that his asking of such a thing was a direct result of the intense feelings of jealousy he held towards the night guard.

She responded in a near _animalistic_ fashion, yelling at him about how he was 'twisted' and questioning how he could ever be sick enough to think of something so cruel. That was the event that had both broke his heart and sparked his dislike for the man.

However, he had only begun to _hate_ Mike for what he had done the night after.

_Why would you let her go off on her own, you idiot?_ Bonnie had thought to himself as he saw her tied up in Pirate cove.

_Why would you ever think that such a delicate little flower would be left untainted by that damn pirate?_ He had lamented as he had raced off to get his guitar, his large purple feet practically setting the ground he tread on alight.

Bonnie was ashamed of himself; he had only been able to muster up the courage to knock the Puppet unconscious when he imagined Mike being in her place.

As he continued staring longingly at Chica, the girl oblivious of his intense affection towards her, he felt an intense wave of guilt wash over him. He was just being selfish; she deserved happiness.

She deserved…Mike.

The night guard in question had stopped in his tracks upon advancing a few paces into the room he had stumbled upon during his search for The Smiler, as he had begun to call the enigmatic smiling man he had encountered mere minutes before. Shutting the door behind him, Mike slowly took a few more steps towards the centre of the room, looking around in wonder as he went.

It seemed to be an office of some sort; newspaper articles related to Freddy's littered the walls, nailed up haphazardly. Some were swinging slightly by a corner, attached by only a single nail. The sight was rather disconcerting, if only because of the fact that the newspaper was swinging implied that something had brushed past it recently.

Stopping briefly, Mike spun on his heels as he looked around the office. He was still clueless as to who it could possibly have belonged to. Walking over to the news articles, Mike read a few. Many were uninteresting, but a few caught his eye. **'FREDBEAR'S FAMILY DINER CLOSES ITS DOORS'**, **'FREDDY FAZBEAR'S PIZZA UNDERGOING CONSTRUCTION'** and **'ANIMATRONICS AT FREDDY'S TO BE SENT TO THE SCRAP HEAP'** were the most notable ones.

Mike read all three of the articles that followed, finding himself unable to tear his eyes off of the articles. He was relieved to see that the animatronics that were to be scrapped were of a completely different restaurant; apparently, Freddy's had undergone many changes and refurbishments throughout its long lifespan.

Mike was interested to see, however, that the 'Toy Chica' animatronic from the second restaurant looked incredibly similar to the Chica that he had become close friends with. His Chica, however, lacked her Toy variant's ridiculously pink cheeks and eyelids; something he was thankful for. In his eyes, the Toy animatronic looked ridiculously goofy as a result. Chica just looked cute.

Moving on from the articles, Mike found himself wandering over to a set of shelves on the other side of the room, curiosity overwhelming him and causing him to temporarily forget about The Smiler. Scratching his stubble, Mike stared in wonder at the rows upon rows of 'souvenirs', seemingly from the older pizzerias, lined the finely crafted wooden platforms.

He saw a hook, slightly thicker than that of Foxy's, alongside an animatronic hand with pudgy blue fingers. Next to that was an ancient looking suit head, seeming to belong to some previous iteration of Freddy judging by the large brown head. However, it looked awkward in the sense that it could rather easily be mistaken for a gopher or a beaver. Mike was glad the current Freddy strayed from that design choice.

Hanging on the wall next to all of the likely very expensive items was a quaint little paper plate doll of some sort, seeming to resemble a child. It had a triangular nose and a large, cheeky smile. It looked very old, judging by how the plate seemed to have yellowed with time as well as having a crumpled rim.

Mike gazed at this inquisitively. Why would this, _specifically_ this, be hung up? Did the owner of this office's kid make it? Was it one of the only things they could find, or did it have some kind of emotional value to it?

Staring for a few more seconds, trying to conjure up some sort of explanation, Mike soon simply shrugged as he moved on. He approached the owner of the office's desk, looking for some sort of nameplate.

Looking behind him to see if anybody had noticed his unwelcome arrival in the room yet, Mike noticed that the paper plate doll was no longer on the wall.

Startled by the abnormal revelation, Mike turned around to face the door entirely and braced himself up against the desk, accidentally knocking a few papers off of its dusty wooden surface.

_This is some seeerious Child's Play shit going on right here._ Mike thought to himself, gripping the edge of the table tightly as paranoia clouded his judgement. He half expected the paper doll to appear behind him with a butcher's knife or something.

After a few minutes of frantically looking around, pressed up against the desk for support, Mike finally decided that it was safe to let his guard down once more. Hesitantly turning back towards the desk, Mike quickly noticed a large brown envelope sitting in front of him, practically _begging_ to be read. '**CLASSIFIED**' was printed on the front of the envelope in huge red letters.

Mike, undeterred by the stamp, decided that since he had already gawked at all of the other stuff that whoever this guy was had and invaded his privacy, he might as well check what was left too. He unfurled the top of the envelope, being mindful and delicate about it. He had known from the moment he had lain eyes on it that it was old; it was off-coloured and smelt of sawdust.

Slowly tugging the documents within the envelope onto the desk, Mike hesitantly sat down in the chair behind it. He figured this was going to be a long read.

Sifting through the yellowed papers and skimming through them, Mike's inquisitive eyes soon fell upon a small booklet titled 'Fredbear Night Guard History'. Opening it up, a small list of names was contained within the booklet, taking up a mere few lines; the rest of the pages were all blank.

Mike smiled to himself. Those were better times, he surmised.

He stumbled upon two more booklets promptly afterwards, titled 'Freddy's Family Pizzeria Night Guard History' and 'Freddy Fazbear's Night Guard Log' respectively. Mike found it strange that the current restaurant's one was named differently to the rest, but he fought down his ravenous curiosity and decided to read the Family Pizzeria's first.

The list was significantly shorter than Fredbear's, this pizzeria having only been open for a few weeks, according to some other documents he had read about the place. Mike did a huge double-take as he skimmed over the three names on the list, his eyes stopping on a certain 'Jeremy Fitzgerald'.

Jeremy?

The maintenance worker?!

Mike decided that it couldn't possibly have been _that_ Jeremy, despite the fact that the accompanying mugshot looked uncannily like the aged man. Minus the moustache, of course. He was only followed by one more night guard: Fritz Smith, who, according to the booklet, only worked at the pizzeria for a day before being fired.

The restaurant was closed the day after.

Intrigued, Mike moved on to the Night Guard Log, opening the booklet up and reading the names within.

He saw that the entirety of the first page of the booklet was filled with names.

As was the next one.

And the one after that.

Mike, now alarmed, began flicking through pages rapidly, random names being the only thing he could see on the yellowed sheets of paper. He reached the second to last page, a recently added one, according to the whiteness of the sheet compared to all of the others, before the names finally stopped, ending on his own one.

Wide-eyed, Mike then noticed that the names all had a status next to them.

He flicked back to the beginning of the book, checking them all and praying that the assumption that his mind had conjured up would be wrong.

It wasn't.

As Mike flicked through the book once again, his horror increasing by ten-fold after every page, he saw a single word by every name except his own.

_Deceased._ _Cause of death: Workplace accident._

That was all it said.

_Workplace accident._

_Workplace __**accident**__._

_**Workplace accident. **_

Putting a hand over his mouth in horror, Mike shut the book faster than he had ever closed something in his life. He turned away from the desk, swivelling in his seat, as he took a few deep, calming breaths.

Reluctantly turning back to the desk, he noticed a few more documents he had yet to read lying haphazardly next to the booklet, which he had thrown back onto the desk in a fit of disgust. Picking up the first sheet, which had been encased in a mini-folder, Mike read the title.

NEW ANIMATRONIC BIO

_Huh. Well, that's one way to grab my attention. _Mike thought to himself, attempting to take his mind off of the thought of how he had been sitting in a chair that had been previously occupied by countless dead people for the past five days. Beginning to read the sheet, he took note of the black and white photograph of what looked to be the animatronic from his nightmare at the bottom of the page.

_Well, sir, you wanted the bio for this thing, so…here you go._

_-Jenkins._

_THE MARIONETTE/PUPPET_

_APPEARANCE: Looks to be based off of French mime artists; perhaps some inspiration taken from clowns. Tall, lanky. Seems to have strings attached to its limbs at all times. Has noticeable sheathed claws. Please handle with caution._

_ORIGIN: Unknown._

_MANUFACTURER: Unknown._

_FOUND IN: Some crap-heap in New York; pardon my language, sir. One of the employees happened to stumble upon it being sold by some weird witch-doctor looking freak. Looking back on things, we shouldn't have trusted that guy, but he was selling it for practically nothing and, well, we know how much you love animatronics, sir._

_BEHAVIOUR: Thankfully, the thing is usually complacent around the kids. Sometimes it even plays a game or two with them. Thing is, it keeps giving adults this funny look. Tends to stare at them as if it's thinking about something. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but I've experienced it myself. It just started stroking its claws and staring at me whilst I monitored its behaviour around the staff. Scared the bejeezus out of me._

_MANNERISMS: Tends to seem like it's thinking a lot. Stares at nothing frequently. Likes to be in the Kitchen area more than the Prize Corner – some staff have already advised that you move it there, sir._

_DANGER LEVEL: Could be a high one, sir. We just don't know what this thing can do yet. I'd say it's about a 5/10 right now, purely due to uncertainty and the little claw stroking fiasco. I'm not sure I'd trust it with children just yet._

Finally finishing his reading of the document, Mike stopped for a second to let all of the information he had just learnt soak in. This was all so interesting! He checked the date of the document's publishing, and found that it was written on the 9th of November, 1985. Funny. That was back when Mike still used to visit the pizzeria, and he had never recalled seeing the…Puppet, was it?

Hm.

Well, he still had one last document to check, and by the title, it was bound to be a good one. Unfolding it entirely and laying it on the desk, Mike began to hungrily absorb the words on the page, beginning to read ravenously.

_THE INCIDENT_

_Sir, we've been receiving multiple threats aimed towards the company as well as countless police visits as of late, as I'm sure you've noticed. I noticed you asking people what had happened yesterday and getting frustrated over not finding an answer, so allow me to enlighten you._

_A few days ago, a group of children were playing amongst themselves. I remember it clearly; I was assigned with the task of watching them. Eventually one of them started to get agitated – a young girl. From what I can recall, she was angry about her friends not allowing her to play with them or something. Well, she began approaching Foxy; the children were playing near Pirate Cove at the time._

_I could tell something was amiss immediately; no child approached a beloved mascot with an expression of such anger without ill intent. I moved to stop her from approaching any further as she began to call the animatronic insulting names in a fit of rage. I began to run over to her as she climbed up on stage with the animatronic, oblivious to the fact that the robot would not stop talking and listen to her. _

_She got closer still as I neared her, screaming out to her, but she wouldn't listen. Foxy then opened his jaws once again a-_

Mike was jarred out of his reading by the sound of a door creaking open.

Looking up in a bout of fear, Mike locked eyes with a grey-haired man. He stood in the doorway, his plaid shirt creased from the way that he was hunched over.

Mike could stutter out only one question to the man.

"W-Who are you?!"

A deep, gravelly voice replied.

"I am Johnathan Fredbear, sir. And may I ask you…

what the Hell are you doing in my office?"

**A/N: Wooh! It is done! Er, the chapter, not the story. Heh.**

**This was a toughie, I have to say. A lot of the time spent producing this chapter was invested into brainstorming for where the story should go next; my brain now hurts. xD **

**So, did you guys like this chapter? I'm very happy with how it turned out, personally! Plenty of plot twists. **

**I also have to give a MAJOR shoutout to a really cool guy who actually helped me produce this chapter by giving me the 'Bonnie has a crush on Chica' part of the story! Trust me, it's really going to help the whole fanfic progress. His username is 'heroic1512' and you should definitely check him out! He's really nice, and is a majorly cool guy!**

**However, this does not mean I'm taking other ideas for chapters. Sorry, guys! You can still suggest some to me through PMs, and, well, if I like them, then sure they'll be in the story! It's just that I don't want the whole fic to be veered off-course because I decided to implement a fan idea and then have no idea where to go with the storyline from there.**

**Anyway, that was quite a long A/N, so let's go straight to the shoutouts! :D**

**Coldjack007: Thanks, bro! I really appreciate it! I'll definitely try to! Heh.**

**SirLumpington The 3****rd****: Thanks! I hope this was a good enough read for ya! Don't succumb to Freddy's temptations!**

**WhoaLookIt'sFoxyThePirate: Not a problem, Cap'n! Hopefully the next chapter will really set sail! I'll be willing to drop a serious anchor related to the storyline!**

…**These pirate puns doing anything for ya? :B**

**afriendnofoe: Yeah, a lot of people have told me that so far. Just means that that chapter did its job! :D**

**Godzilla King of Monsters: Y-Yes, sir-Godzilla-man-sir! I, er, like the new profile pic! Hehe…**

**Purest of the Hearts: Indeed! Although, maybe Bonnie won't be getting that drink if the Puppet gets to him…**

**Aasura-chan: Aw, shucks! It's nothin'! Seriously, though, thanks a bunch! That really means a lot to me! ^.^**

**Timmy22222001: Wow. My goodness, this was absolutely wonderful to read. You lifted my spirits by about ten-fold as I read this review, and I'm not joking. Without wonderful reviews such as this, I'm not sure I'd have been willing to continue this story after even the first chapter. Thus, to everyone that has reviewed my work so far, thank you. It's an honour, truly, to know that you awesome people out there like my work. Thank you so much. 3**

**Guest: Indeed it does!**

…**Right…?**

**[OIETGS HNGEHVSEKR FOSVJECR]**

**HoodedSource: Uh…maybe…? *Crosses fingers cheekily***

**Solaris456: Well, Bonnie HAS always been known for his accuracy. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)**

**Well, thanks for reading this entire author's note, guys, and I hope to see you next chapter! :D**


	8. Incidental Occurrences

"I am Johnathan Fredbear, sir. And may I ask you…

What the Hell are you doing in my office?" The voice asked, Mike quickly realising that it did indeed belong to the seemingly frail old man that was currently standing only a few feet away from him. Leaping out of Fredbear's chair, Mike began profusely apologising to the elderly man as Fredbear himself bore into the frantically apologising night guard with a penetrating glare.

"Save it." He grunted, obviously stressed in some way. Whether he was annoyed because of Mike essentially breaking into his office or something else entirely was unbeknownst to the younger man. Looking to the wooden floor and rubbing his temples in frustration, Mr. Fredbear exhaled loudly before lifting his gaze to meet Mike's once more. Green eyes locked with blue as the two men continued their stare-off, Mike soon shrinking under the gaze of whom would seem to be his boss.

"O-Once again, I am SO sorry, Mr. Fredbear, sir. I-It won't happen again, I promise."

"Hu-Wha…? Why're you callin' me sir, boy?"

It was at around that point that Mike had noticed Mr. Fredbear spoke with a heavy Texan accent underneath his booming vocals; not that it was important at the time, of course. Mike slowly relaxed his tensed muscles at his boss's confused question, his mind quickly becoming clouded with bafflement.

"I…er…you don't know that…you're my boss?" Mike asked John as the two continued their stare down, the latter now seeming substantially less threatening to the former. At Mike's equally puzzled question, Fredbear simply fixed him with an odd look. It was a look that was silently asking Mike whether the older man should know him.

"I'm, er, the night guard…here…?" Mike elaborated further, his voice now overlain with a questioning tone as the man opposite him's eyes widened, a mixture of recollection and shock on his face. Fredbear paced a step closer towards Mike, seeming to have been sizing him up. Mike, feeling bolder than he should have been, decided to return the calculating stare.

"So…you're Mike? Mike, er…Schmosby, was it?" Mike's elderly boss asked inquisitively, curiosity etched onto his wrinkled facial features as he snapped his fingers a few times, attempting to remember Mike's name.

"Uh, it's, er, Mike _Schmidt_ actually, sir. Heh." Mike awkwardly corrected, scratching his stubble as he did. It was funny; he'd barely ever scratched his stubble before he had been employed by Freddy's. Now, however, he did it almost religiously. It was a comforting feeling, he supposed. It let him know that he was still alive and kicking.

"Ah, Schmidt. I can never remember w'th all yous Jewish folk, y'know." John carelessly blurted out, causing Mike to be taken aback.

Stuttering slightly as he spoke, caught off guard by the jarringly blunt reply, he continued, "Well, er, actually, sir, it's a, um, German name. M-My family stems f-from…from Germany." In an attempt to be as polite as possible out of fear of getting fired. Despite the legal bullcrap, the killer robots and the life-threatening danger that every night at Freddy's seemed to offer almost exclusively, Mike found himself desperately needing the money that the job would give him.

That was all, though. He definitely did not want to keep returning because of a certain animatronic chicken. Not at all. And even if he did, he would only want to return due to the fact that she was merely a great friend. Yeah, that sounded about right.

Just a good friend.

Nothing more.

Brushing these thoughts aside, Mike once again focused on the man that stood opposite him as said man opened his wrinkled mouth to reply.

"That's, er, nice, boy. Don't mean yer allowed'n my private office, though. Y'understand me, don'tcha son?"

"O-Of course, Mr. Fredbear, s-sir. I, er, I promise it won't happen again." Mike anxiously whimpered, fiddling with the collar of his shirt in nervousness.

"Yer darn right it won't, boy. N' don'tchu be sittin' in my chair no more, neither. Tha's my property, too." He seemed about finished with his scolding, but suddenly his face adopted an air of realisation. He looked back at Mike as he passed him, Fredbear having begun to move towards his chair as Mike walked to the door, before calling out to him once more.

Mike relinquished his grip on the door, stopping and turning towards his elderly boss once again. Looking back at him over his shoulder, Mike tensed up in anticipation; he should have known he wouldn't have been getting off easy.

However, what came out of his superior's mouth next surprised him.

Johnathan stared at the young man, an expression of worry evident on his face. Once more, green eyes locked with blue as the aged manager uttered a question to his subordinate.

"You, er…y'didn't see anythin'…outta th' ordinary whilst you's were in here, uh, right, son?" Fredbear slowly muttered, his slightly raspy voice laced with concern as he twiddled his thumbs impatiently. His forehead was flooded with subtle wrinkles as he raised his thick eyebrows expectantly at his employee.

Mike, adamant in keeping his job, fixed his boss with a keen stare and smiled a false toothy grin, uttering a simple 'No sir' before promptly walking out of the office, shutting the door behind him as he caught a glimpse of the relieved face of his employer, the man finally moving to sit down in his chair.

As Mike finally walked out of Fredbear's office, a look of guilt plastered onto his face as a result of his shameless lying, he made an uncertain beeline throughout the pizzeria, eventually ending up in front of the door to a certain room.

_Pirate Cove._

He needed closure. He needed to find out what had happened on the day of The Incident, and somehow, in some strange way, Mike was certain that the only animatronic that would be willing to disclose such important information currently lay behind a set of purple curtains.

Taking a few deep, calming breaths, Mike finally managed to summon up enough courage to grasp the rusty doorknob that always seemed to taunt him, day after day, in a firm grip. He inserted the appropriate key into the grey door's bronze lock with his other hand, unlocking it, before he twisted the cold knob, feeling the door reluctantly open to allow him entry. It opened only slightly before it jarred and, ultimately, stuck.

Leaning on its cool surface, so as to add his weight onto the strain that the stubborn door had to face, he smiled a thin, bittersweet smile as he felt the entrance to the dark room finally give way after approximately a minute had passed.

Mike couldn't help but wonder just how Foxy could get out of the Cove every night, considering it seemed to be locked every other day. It simply wouldn't be logical to unlock it for the night, so what was the big idea?

Brushing some paper stars that hung on string from the ceiling aside, Mike reluctantly tip-toed up to the purple curtains that he had come to fear as of late, desperately attempting to be as quiet as possible so as not to elicit a hostile reaction from the likely dormant animatronic behind their silky confines.

His breaths erratic and shaky, Mike loudly cleared his throat, soon deeming it best to stand well away from the dark crack between the curtains as he moved back by a foot or two. Soon enough, it became apparent that Foxy had indeed heard him; very audible clicking noises could be heard from behind the curtains, which Mike assumed were the sounds of the fox's aged hydraulic joints being put to work yet again.

The curtains were parted by a gleaming steel hook, as per usual – however, Foxy was anything _but_ ordinary in demeanour.

Apparently, his brawl with Freddy during Mike's last night shift had really taken its toll on him, as the fox, rather than being imposing and lanky, was now crawling along the metal surface of the pizzeria's floors rather pathetically, the leg that Freddy had pulled on being limp and stretched abnormally far out of its socket, only being connected by a few thick wires. His orange fur was matted with dried oil.

Mike stared in shock, wide-eyed, as the resentful pirate sneered up at him. He had attempted to conceal his lower half with the curtains for a few moments, but promptly gave up and simply crawled the rest of the way out. His yellow eyes narrowed as his snout crinkled with annoyance.

"H-He-Here t'-t'laugh-augh, ar-are-aren't ye-e? Ta ha-ave a chuc-uckle at o-ol' rus-rusty, sen-senile Cap'n Fo-Foxy?" He contemptuously asked as he continued to sneer, baring his fangs up at Mike slightly in an obvious sign of aggression.

"Ta-Take a pi-pict-picture, i-it'll la-last longer-onger." The worn pirate muttered pessimistically, finally turning his gaze from Mike to the floor in an act of shame. "I-I'll prol-olly be-e scr-scrapped so-oon enough, anyway-way. Wha-What use've the-they got fer m-me 'cept a-as a decor-oration? I haven't ev-even seen the lig-light've d-day in 2-20 odd y-years."

As Mike listened to the weary lamenting of a tired old seadog, he could not help but feel a pang of regret for what he had let Freddy do. Did Foxy really deserve it? He seemed to only be doing what that weird clown thing told him to out of fear; that is, if what he had said was to be trusted.

Mike had never seen Foxy as the nefarious type, having looked up to him for almost the entirety of his life, but he was definitely certain of the fact that the pirate was not as wonderful or jolly as he used to be. Perhaps it had something to do with The Incident?

He thought back to Freddy's words from the previous night.

"_**FIRST IT WAS THE GIRL, AND NOW YOU'RE TRYING TO KILL MY FRIEND?!"**_

_What did Freddy mean by that? And why had Foxy looked so petrified upon him saying that?_

Raking his nails across his stubble once more, Mike interrupted the animatronic fox's hate-fuelled speech prematurely.

"Foxy, listen to me. I…I'm not here because I wanna mock you. Not at all. I'd never want to do something like that. What'd be the point?

No, I'm…I'm here to ask you about something."

Surprised, Foxy merely tilted his head at an angle, seemingly curious as to the night guard's intentions. He spun his hook arm in a windmill-like manner, silently telling Mike to proceed.

For just a moment, it seemed that Foxy had come to accept the night guard's existence.

Mike gulped as he twiddled his thumbs, unsure of how he could word it to avoid making it seem like he thought that Foxy was responsible for The Incident. Clearing his throat and noting how dry it had suddenly become, he nervously put his question forward.

"Uh…do, er, you know anything about some sort of…incident…related to a little girl, or, um, something?" He muttered slowly, flinching subtly upon finishing his question. Looking to the fox after a short period of unnerving silence, Mike was surprised to see that Foxy, the supposed hardened, salty sea-farer, had a look of shock on his orange muzzle.

He stared at some invisible object in the far distance, his visible white pupil trembling faintly. Ears twitching slightly, the fox seemed to slump ever-further down, getting even closer to touching the floor of Freddy's with his torso, which was barely being kept suspended in the air due to his arms feebly holding it there. They twitched slightly, giving away his physical – or mental – exertion.

Mike's gaze flitted around the cove, the silence that Foxy had bathed the room in becoming a bit too stubborn for him to feel comfortable being in it. After about a minute or so of this, Mike's ears picked up a very faint sound. Almost like…

_Sobbing?_

_Was he…?_

Mike did not have to finish his unasked question as he looked back to the pirate that had now completely fallen to the floor, Foxy simply losing the will to continue his futile efforts in staying upright. His orange back heaved slightly as a particularly loud sob was released from his worn throat, his freckled face contorted into an expression of immense sadness. Lifting his red eyelids reluctantly, Foxy looked to Mike once more.

He sniffled again, and Mike was certain he saw a tear slip out of the animatronic's eye-socket before it was soaked into his fur. Propping himself up once more, the animatronic began staring at his hook, the gleaming metal reflecting the fox's face back to him; the pirate flinched upon looking into his own eyes.

He then began to snarl.

Much like the first time Mike had encountered Foxy after returning to the restaurant, it began near-silent, gradually ramping up in volume with every growl until it filled the room like a pack of wolves; however, once it became clearly audible, Mike began to regret letting it reach that stage. Foxy slowly turned his decrepit snout towards Mike once more, the night guard quickly taking note of how incredibly _sharp_ the fox's teeth were.

Mike slowly began standing up, trying to avoid making any abrupt movements, as Foxy's eyes followed every step he took.

"G-Get-et…ou-out…_**now**_." The pirate hissed, slowly beginning to make his way towards Mike with only his arms. His crooked metal legs trailed limply behind him like the tail of a gorgon. Mike fumbled with his words, fear overtaking his body and causing his mind to go blank. Broadening his slow steps, Mike walked backwards towards the door opposite the one he had entered through, not daring to take his eyes off of the crawling robot only meters away from him – and closing in fast.

_Dammit, why does this stupid room have to be so __**long**__?!_ Mike thought to himself frantically as he pawed the wall beside him for support.

"T-Tell Freddy…**I-IT WA-WASN'T MY FAU-AULT!**" Foxy screeched, anger clouding his senses as he managed to, somehow, speed up ever more, using his hook for extra mobility as he began to practically throw himself along the floor with it. Sparks flew from the collision of steel, the animatronic unflinching.

Mike simply gave up on moving slowly upon seeing this, ripping his eyes off of Foxy and darting towards the door. Pulling out his keys, Mike fumbled to unlock it as the pirate continued giving chase, gaining ground alarmingly quickly despite his lack of leg-power. Sweating bullets, Mike swore to himself as he let his one ticket out of the horror that was Pirate Cove _literally_ slip through his fingers.

Mike's eyes widened as he heard the sound of the keys hitting the checkered floor of the pizzeria, turning to see Foxy sitting up slightly about two feet away from him, crouching on his good leg.

Wait.

_That fuzzy bastard is gonna jump._

Mike was paralysed with shock as the animatronic leapt at him, hook waving wildly through the air. Acting under the influence of pure adrenaline, Mike grabbed the fox's hook arm as it came startlingly close to impaling him, taking advantage of Foxy's momentum. He then promptly spun around in a circle and smacked the robot into the restaurant's steel walls, being surprised at both how light he was and the incredibly loud noise that the collision of fox and wall produced.

Apologising to Foxy, Mike was caught off guard by a sudden swipe at his legs; he barely managed to jump over it before grabbing his keys in one swift motion. Mike stood in a corner near the door, keeping his distance from the pirate, as he looked for the key that would get him out of there.

Flicking five keys aside on the keychain desperately, Mike sighed in relief upon finally finding the one that he needed; it was small and bronze, and was coated with dust. Running back to the door, warding off Foxy with a threatening kick, he finally unlocked it. Throwing it open and ignoring his orange pursuer's aggressive roars of anger, Mike bolted through and shut it behind him, promptly locking it thereafter.

Leaning on the cool surface of the now locked door in relief, Mike released a breath he hadn't known he had been holding. He could not hear anything from the other side; nothing but silence was audible from behind the door.

One thing had been made certain by his visit to Foxy's little hovel, in any case.

He was never setting foot in Pirate Cove again.

Meanwhile, back in the Kitchen, a certain malevolent entity had begun to grow bored of simply sitting in her box and waiting for 12:00PM to arrive. Sure, the music that the box would occasionally emit soothed her for a time, but she missed the days when it would be constantly playing. It was at times such as this that she found herself actively _missing_ the old restaurant.

Plus, the animatronics there were far easier to manipulate than the ratty hunks of rot that now made up the Freddy's band.

It was then that the Puppet was struck by an irresistible idea.

_Why not make my own friend?_

She _could_, after all. She didn't need to know how all the boring, complex stuff, like circuitry, worked; not to mention how that Backstage area was practically begging to be ransacked. There were enough suit parts in there for her to make an ARMY of animatronics!

_Wait._

_Oh, that sounds even __**more**__ fun._

She now knew exactly what she wanted to do to Bonnie upon hearing the call of midnight. Not to mention, she knew where the…_extra_-extra parts were hidden – all of which were bound to spice up Mike's shift. It was the end of his first week, after all. He deserved a surprise!

After making her mind up, the Puppet slunk out of her box silently; she carefully inched the door open before taking a broad step out of the dark room, shutting it quietly behind her. At that moment, one could have mistaken her for a shadow, or even a ghost; she seemed to melt into the shadows, knowing like the back of her wide hand the exact areas that every flickering light in the pizzeria covered.

Smiling with mischievous glee, she proceeded to slink through the Party Room. Occasionally children would attempt to follow her, seeming to always know where she was as if under a trance, but she would quickly usher them away, becoming serious for but a second before reverting back to her usual sadistic self. She would have gladly let the children tag along if Freddy were not on the other side of the room.

She knew that, despite being seemingly 'stuck' on-stage, Freddy would have been more than willing to break character for the sake of a few children.

Finally finding her way into the Backstage area, the Puppet shut the door behind her. She knew it had been locked upon its closing; she seemed to have a way with locks. Gathering some…'supplies'…from the shelves lining the walls of the room, she unceremoniously laid them down onto the table in its centre.

_That's Bonnie sorted._

_Now for Mike…_

Setting about her grim errands, the Puppet moved a large Freddy mannequin that stood in the corner of the room aside; it was essentially an extra suit, but it had been so damaged that it was deemed unusable. The Puppet still remembered all the times she would slice into it, simply laughing to herself as she watched the puzzled faces of the maintenance workers.

Behind the mannequin was a wall – or what would appear to be a wall. In the dim light, it would have been challenging to notice the slight crinkles on its surface for most people. Luckily for the Puppet, however, she was not even a person, nevermind being part of the majority.

Tugging the fabric off of the wall, she gazed into the large, empty doorway that lay beneath it. Smiling once more, this time in anticipation, she gleefully skipped down a short corridor, lit only by two flickering lights. Opening the door on the other side, which had been labelled 'CAUTION! HAZARDOUS MATERIALS AHEAD', she waltzed into the room that lay ahead of her.

Good. They were all still here. Now she just needed to wait for Mike's night-shift to commence.

Turning around with the door still in her grasp, she looked over her shoulder once more at the small group of slouched figures that lay in the confined rectangular room. She whispered a single sentence, more to them than herself.

"I'll see you tonight, my friends."

And with that the door was shut once more, the Puppet putting the cloth and mannequin back in their places backstage before hauling all of the parts she would need for Bonnie's surprise back into the Kitchen, taking a more secluded route there this time.

She was not willing to risk being spotted by Freddy _this_ late into her plans.

Hours passed, and eventually the pizzeria began to near closing time. At around this point Freddy and his crew had entered their shutdown mode and the curtains had been drawn.

As the last of the pizzeria's customers funnelled out of the establishment, tired and content, Mike simply did what now felt natural to him; waiting until the very last person had left, he finally got out of his seat in front of the Show Stage and clambered onto it, pushing aside the red curtains that covered his animatronic friends.

Checking his watch, Mike saw that it had just gone 10:30PM. He had an hour and a half to get everything he needed to off of his chest; it _was_ the last night he legally had to spend in the pizza parlour, after all, and he was more than ready to leave.

He would visit regularly, of course; he would just do so during the day.

He couldn't just _leave_ his friends, after all. Especially not after everything they had done to ensure his safety during his night shifts, and after all the good times they'd had together.

Hell, Mike would even go so far as to say…he _loved_ his animatronic friends. Despite the rough start they had shared, and all their attempts on his life, he really did love them. They had felt almost like family to him ever since he was a child; however, the Christmas they had all shared together mere days ago only helped in solidifying that feeling.

Finally clearing his head of such thoughts, Mike once again began to quietly mutter Freddy's name, crouching down slightly in front of the bulky bear whilst shaking his broad shoulder gently. Strangely, Mike found that Freddy's fur felt far softer on his palm than it had only days prior. It was likely due to how he had gradually begun fearing the bear less and less after he had revealed his true nature.

Smiling to himself as Freddy's charcoal eyelids fluttered slightly, he tapped the side of the animatronic's large head lightly to help him come to his senses faster. Groaning, Freddy opened his eyes entirely, his tired body slumped over somewhat.

"Ugh…Mike, is that you?" Freddy grumbled exhaustedly, rubbing his green eyes with a pudgy brown hand.

"Yeah, Freddy. Just came to check up on you guys." Mike replied, his tone slightly heavy. Freddy once again relaxed upon Mike's confirmation of his identity, taking his hand off of his eye. Smiling up at him, the old bear clambered onto his feet slowly.

Looking Mike up and down, the bear instantly saw that something was amiss. Eyeing Mike's face carefully, Freddy asked, "Hey, Mike…are you feeling alright? You, er, don't seem as happy as usual."

"No, everything's fine, Freddy. Don't worry." Mike scoffed, waving his hand dismissively. However, Freddy saw straight past the façade. Crossing his arms in a scolding manner, the humungous bear tutted at Mike.

The young night guard, surprised by Freddy's stern actions, could have sworn that, just for a moment, he saw his father in the robotic mammal.

"Don't give me that, Mike. You can't fool me. Something's bothering you. The bear knows all, remember?" Freddy continued jokingly, tapping his finger against his wide nose as he had the last time he'd coined that phrase. Mike chuckled, looking to the floor of the stage for a few moments.

"Nothin' gets past you, huh, Freddy?" Mike muttered grimly, more to himself than to Freddy, as he continued gazing at the checkered floor. He could see his own face in it; he could see how reluctant he was in telling his friends everything. He wanted to, he so _desperately_ wanted to just let it all out, but he knew he couldn't. Not yet. It just wasn't the right time. He wanted to end his career at Freddy's on a high note, after all.

Letting a near-soundless, breathy chuckle escape his throat, Mike looked back to Freddy, blue eyes meeting green for the third time that day. Mike put his hands in his pockets as he simply gazed, attempting to think of something he could say that would brighten up his situation. However, he needn't have, as he heard the rhythmic whirring of hydraulics sounding off to Freddy's right.

Chica's yellow head slowly lifted from being rested on her chest, her vivid violet eyes looking around the dark Show Stage for a moment or two. As her eyes landed on the smiling face of her night watchman, Chica found herself resisting the insatiable urge to once again jump on him and smother him in her feathers.

It was a strange urge, yet she had found herself wanting to do so to Mike more and more as the days they shared together increased in number.

"Hey, Chica. How'd you sleep? Y'know, for the, er, two minutes or so that you _were_ asleep. Sorry about that…heh." Mike awkwardly began, scratching the back of his neck nervously. It was odd, really. Mike had no problem talking to the other animatronics however he wanted, yet when it was Chica he had to talk to, he simply couldn't formulate the right words.

He would get butterflies in his stomach whenever she said his name, and for some her personality was likely infuriating.

However, he found it, and everything else about the little chicken, _intoxicating_. The way her feathers felt against his skin, the little smiles she would flash at him through the cameras whenever she ventured towards his office in the night and even her ravenous appetite all made her utterly adorable, in his eyes.

Thinking about all of this, Mike completely missed her answer to his question. He simply stood there, a dopey smile pasted onto his face, staring fixatedly at a segment of wall. It took Freddy lightly hitting him on the back of the head to knock some sense back into him.

"Ouch! Hey, watch it!" He exclaimed, his surprise and general unpreparedness amplifying the pain a tad. As he rubbed the area that he had been hit, he flashed a glare at the perpetrator, the large bear simply shrugging nonchalantly.

"It's rude to ignore a lady." He plainly stated, an obvious smile being subdued as he did so. Mike smiled back, shaking his fist in a show of mock-anger.

"Why, I aughtta-!" He exclaimed cartoonishly, trying to put on a false grouchy voice.

Freddy simply chuckled, his shoulders lifting slightly after every inhalation. Gently pushing Mike a few inches further towards a flustered-looking Chica, Freddy muttered, "Well, I've had my fill of attention. Methinks Chica would appreciate you listening to her answer to your question this time, hmm…?"

Mike felt a surge of blood rushing into his cheeks as he looked up at Freddy's smiling face. The bear flashed him a near-unnoticeable wink before he walked back to where he had been again, turning his head away from the two. Wait.

_Why the Hell's that big goof givin' us privacy?_

Brushing his thoughts aside, Mike looked to Chica expectantly. The chicken, who had been looking at Mike's feet up until that point, suddenly locked eyes with him. Almost immediately afterwards, she squeaked adorably before looking away again, seeming to be consciously _avoiding_ his gaze. She timidly opened her mouth to speak, suddenly looking a lot like her Toy counterpart from the newspaper due to how bright pink her cheeks were.

"U-Uh, I-I had, erm, a nice rest, thanks…" She muttered sedately, much to the surprise of Mike. Usually, Chica was so lively and bombastic that she was even hard to keep up with in conversation; where had that energy gone? "What aboutchu, Mike? Did ya have a good sleep last night?"

"Uh…yeah. Yeah, I did, thanks, Chica." Mike hesitantly replied, gently kicking at air as he stared at the floor. Freddy cleared his throat, garnering the attention of the two shy friends.

"Anything else…?" He hinted at, well aware of the fact that Mike could easily leave tomorrow, thus meaning Chica would never see him again. He had known what was going on right from the start; he'd seen their chemistry. He just didn't believe it for a time. Now, though, the bear was on a personal mission to get the two as close as humanly – or animatronically – possible.

Upon Freddy's hint, a certain spark shone in Chica's violet eyes.

She knew what he was implying, and it seemed she finally had the guts to act on it.

Straightening her bib, she fixed Mike with a determined stare.

_She was going to do it!_

"Mike?" She said, getting his attention as a result of the firmness of her voice.

Freddy leaned forward slightly, smiling as he watched it all unfold.

"Y-Yeah, Chica?" Mike stuttered out, taken by surprise as a result of the chicken's sudden bravery. He looked at her expectantly, some part of him hoping she was going to beg him not to leave; to try, no matter what, to convince him to stay at Freddy's.

"You are…a _wondahful_ man, Mike. Ya've proven dat much already. You're da best friend I think I've evah had besides Freddy and Bawnnie, and dat's sayin' somethin'."

Mike and Freddy's smiles unanimously began to grow in anticipation.

"So…so I need ta get dis awff've my chest. It's been eatin' at me since Christmas, and ya need ta know…" She stopped for a moment to think of what to say next.

Mike bit his lip to stop himself from uttering a silent prayer. He surprised himself with how badly he wanted her to just ask him to stay.

_Please…don't make me go. Please, Chica._ He found himself mentally begging.

His face wore an expression of desperation; Freddy, who had inched a little bit closer to the pair, had an expression of excitement plastered onto his big brown muzzle. He took off his top hat, gripping it tightly and holding it to his chest.

"I want you…" She trailed off for a moment. Mike's breath hitched in his throat. He wanted to hug Chica; she really wanted him to stay with her! Freddy was about to jump to his feet and begin cheering for the two, when…

"…to stay safe t'night. A'ight?" Chica finished, her eyes showing both fear and concern.

Mike's smile dropped.

Freddy nearly dropped his top hat in shock.

Bonnie had seen everything. He smirked to himself. _He still had a chance._

Mike visibly deflated, his shoulders slouching and his head lowering in dismay. _She…doesn't care. Why does that…__**bother**__ me so much? _Mike found himself thinking as he simply nodded at the heart-crushing chicken, his face barely concealing his sadness.

He did not so much as look at Bonnie as he walked off of the Show Stage. Hell, he had forgotten the bunny had even existed due to his depression.

Freddy sighed in sympathy as he watched Mike hesitantly lumber to his office prematurely, apparently more willing to wait two hours to begin his shift than have to be near the girl that had just stomped on his soul.

_She hadn't understood, after all._

Letting his arms hang limply by his sides, still clutching his top hat, Freddy turned to Chica.

He simply flashed her a questioning look, silently asking her why the Hell she had – essentially – smacked Mike into the friend-zone.

Chica was oblivious to even that, simply watching Mike slowly walk to his office with a regretful look on his face. Suddenly, as if out of thin air, Bonnie walked out of the shadows and laid a comforting purple hand on her yellow shoulder.

"He'll be alright." He muttered nonchalantly. "That kid always finds a way to bounce back from things."

"Maybe…but…I…what did I say…?" Chica asked nobody in particular, unable to peel her eyes away from Mike's retreating form as he gradually became unable to be seen by her guilty eyes. She felt horrible, and she simply didn't know why.

"You didn't do anything wrong, Chica." Freddy reassured her, sitting down on the tiled floor. "But thinking about it will only make you feel guiltier. Get some rest; we'll make Mike's last night here a memorable one."

Freddy smiled a gentle smile as he entered shutdown mode once again, Bonnie soon following suit. Chica felt isolated as a result of Mike leaving. She wanted him back on the stage. She wanted to tell him to never leave, to stay with her forever…but she didn't want to scare him.

Thus, she, too, succumbed to the temptations of rest.

However, this bout of napping was also destined to be short-lived as a terrified scream reverberated around the pizzeria, jolting the trio of animatronics out of their slumbering.

"**WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? GET AWAY!**"

**A/N: Welp, this was a tough chapter to write. Heh. I was really struggling to find events that I could use to my advantage throughout the writing process of this chappie, but I'm very happy with the results. I reached my word goal, and for that I am content. However, what do you guys think of this chapter? Did you like it or not? Please, your feedback will really help me and motivate me.**

**Also, I'm SO sorry for not writing a Valentine's Day chapter! I just could not finish the chapter in time, what I **_**had**_** written was a rushed travesty, and I got incredibly stressed. Thus, I started over the next day aaaand…voila! I am very angry with myself about it, though, since Valentine's Day chapters, in my opinion, should be a given in romance fictions. xD I mean, come on. It's the day of fluff, for Christ's sake!**

**Nonetheless, I don't think it would have been appropriate. I have not yet fleshed out Chica and Mike's relationship to a point that I find adequate; I want to build up to it more and really taunt my readers with it. ;) I'm a terrible person sometimes, especially in my writing, as writing enables me to be terrible. Sorry, guys! xD**

**So, can anybody predict what is going to happen next chapter? Super-duper-mega-pooper-scooper shoutouts for anybody that does!**

**However, let's have some actual shoutouts, since this A/N is **_**freakin'**_** long. If you've made it this far, congrats! :P**

**Tigersfury:**

**Eh, I dunno…could he really be considered 'misunderstood' after he tries clawing people's legs off? :/ You decide!**

**Coldjack007:**

**Aw, thanks man! And thanks for sticking around for so long; you've been here since the beginning, after all. Thanks again for all of your wonderful reviews, bro! hope you liked this one!**

**The Wandering Reader:**

**Hopefully the plot has thickened to the point where you could cut into it like buttah. Then simply season and marinate, and-**

**Nevermind. :B**

**Thanks for the review, friendo, and, er…**

***PUN INBOUND***

**I hope you don't…*snickering* WANDER…away from this fanfic!**

**Eh? Eh? *Shot***

**Thanks so much for reading up to this point, guys, and I hope all of you stick around for the next chapter! ;)**


	9. The Son of a Demon

**A/N: Super-Duper-Ultra-Mega-Pooper-Scooper Shoutouts to A Wandering Reader and Mamamu-yan for being awesome people and helping me get this chapter out to you guys. Without them, it would have taken me at least another week! They're both fantastic people, and I really do recommend you give their profiles a look-see and fave their fanfics. They're fantastic! **

**So, without further ado, I truly hope you enjoy! However, I must warn the squeamish: This is a very dark chapter which contains a SUPER IMPORTANT plot device! Proceed with caution!**

Mike felt numb as he made the abnormally long trip from the Show Stage to his office, surprised upon realising ten minutes had already passed by the time he reached the West Hall Corner. He didn't know how to feel. Should he have been thankful, due to now having literally _no_ reason to return to Freddy's after completing this last shift, or should he have been depressed due to him leaving his old friends?

What's worse, if he _did_ leave, it would be their fault. He didn't want to know how his pals would be feeling at the thought of that. At least, Mike THOUGHT they were his pals. Were they really, though? Did they treat all the previous night guards the same way? Was it programmed into them, hard-wired to be his friends from the very beginning?

Mike couldn't help but become lost in thought, moving to scratch his stubble once again.

However, upon rounding the corner into his office, he let out a rather loud swear word at the sight that lay – or rather, _hung_ – before him.

Amidst his soul-crushing, Chica-related depression, Mike had completely forgotten about the phantom employer that seemed to plague him night after night. Thus, it came as a huge surprise when Mike saw the mysterious man hanging by his neck, the thick rope wrapped around it lifting him from the floor only a few feet away from his chair. He faced the door that the unsuspecting night guard had just walked through, making unnervingly precise eye contact.

He still swayed ever-so slightly, causing Mike to feel sick to his stomach. Either the man had died recently, or someone else had passed through the room before Mike had. Hesitantly passing off the swaying as nerves, Mike reluctantly inched towards the body. He grimaced in fear as he noticed his employer had been smiling on the moment of his apparent suicide, the man bearing a toothy grin as he limply swung.

Mike's trembling hand reached out towards the man's neck, figuring he may as well try and see if he was alright. However, the fumbling night guard had no such luck. His fingertips only met cold, lifeless pale flesh. Sighing shakily, Mike rubbed his tired eyes and sat down in his leather chair.

He decided that calling his parents would likely be the best thing he could do to take his mind off of the – still staring – corpse, his shaking fingers slowly pressing the large numbered buttons on his mobile.

He had wanted to call his mom and dad ever since he had completed his first night shift, to tell them the horrible mistake he had made by applying for the job in the quaint little pizzeria, but he'd never had the heart to. He knew that if his mom and dad had found out what was going on before he had completed his week, they would likely be willing to risk losing all of their money in court than allow him to stay there any longer.

Now, though, it seemed he wouldn't have to worry about that. He _was_ leaving the pizzeria for good in eight hours, after all. He could start anew, be a superstore clerk or something. Jobs were aplenty, and he could work with numbers. He would do well in that environment.

But, as he thought about other jobs, his thoughts always returned to Chica. Of how cute she always seemed to be; of her dazzling smile, her bright pink eyes, eyes that always seemed so intelligent, and of her easily-lovable personality.

Mike then felt something else.

Reluctance.

He, all of a sudden, felt as though he didn't want to leave the pizzeria. To leave Chica. Hell, he didn't want to leave Freddy or Bonnie, either. He even felt hesitant to leave Foxy, to some strange degree. Despite the pirate's multiple attempts at killing him, the times they had shared together during Mike's childhood would forever place the pirate on some sort of strange pedestal in his heart.

Mike smiled a sour smile and turned his gaze to the checkered floor of his office as he thought about leaving his beloved friends, completely unaware of a peculiar creaking noise coming from only a few feet away from where he was seated. He took a deep breath as the phone finally connected, the sound of his mother's voice being emitted from the speakers.

As soon as he opened his mouth to speak, still staring at the floor, the voice of another overrode the sound of his own.

"You should never let your guard down in this place, Mike."

Mike looked up, instantly locking eyes with his employer, now _far_ livelier than he should have been.

The man's arms shot out towards the young guard, his cold fingertips quickly finding their way around Mike's neck. Dropping his phone in shock, Mike let out a strangled scream. He could not help but look to where his phone had fallen, the device having been shattered into a multitude of pieces on the floor. He could not call anybody for help anymore, that was for sure.

His fingers tightening around the young man's neck, Mike's false employer swiftly turned towards the wall closest to him, throwing his subordinate at it in a feat of strength that should not have been possible for a man of his age.

Still attached to the ceiling by his rope, the man then kicked off of Mike's chair and wrapped his legs around his panicking employee's waist, keeping him pinned to the cold metal surface. Mike had hit the wall inches from the edge of his steel desk; had he collided with it, the rigid surface could have easily snapped his spine like a twig. Tightening his grip ever-further, the man flashed Mike yet another toothy grin.

Barely getting one last gulp of oxygen into his strained lungs, Mike used it to screech out to anyone that listened, praying that the animatronics could hear him.

"**WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? GET AWAY!**"

He tried to head-butt the thrashing man that hung off of his waist, instead only serving to aggravate the psychopathic apparition ever-further. He repeatedly missed, the demon-turned-man predicting the multiple attempts that followed his first try. Forcefully pressing his thumbs onto Mike's throat in an attempt to cut off his air-flow, Mike's employer stared him straight in the eye before smacking the night guard against the wall behind him.

"You're so…PERSISTENT, aren't you, kid?!" Mike's wrinkled assailant yelled, his voice becoming slightly muffled in Mike's ears. An inky blackness began snaking its way into the centre of his vision as he began to get short of breath. Feebly clutching his homicidal zombie boss's cold arms, Mike began to grow weak. Sliding down the wall slightly, the night guard began to succumb to his body's fatigue.

_Just have to close my eyes…just for a second, is all…_Mike thought to himself, even his inner voice growing weak as oxygen slowly drained its way out of his brain. His grip loosened, and he eventually let go of his employer's arms, his bony hands still clutching the night guard's throat in a grip of steel.

"I…always…_win_." He hissed at Mike, the young man's ears only being able to hear unintelligibly muffled noise as his vision blurred. Upon shutting his eyes, however, Mike heard what sounded vaguely like a _thunk_ before the icy feeling of his employer's fingers disappeared from his throat. Instantaneously, Mike's eyes opened once more as he fell to the floor, gratuitously gulping in lungfuls of oxygen.

As his vision cleared, he gazed into the glassy, shocked eyes of his employer, apparently dead once again. Propping himself up on his arms as air re-entered his lungs, Mike caught sight of a pair of old, tattered boots by the corpse.

Looking up, Mike was more than surprised at the sight that stood before him.

_Wait…th-the __**janitor**__ saved me?!_

He had never really known the janitor all too well, the two never having spoken to one another much, explaining why he was so surprised about the man actively saving his life. He stood, his posture slightly slouched, as he regarded the corpse of Mike's 'employer' with an uncaring look, bloodied mop in hand.

"That'll hurt in the mornin', that will." He muttered to himself casually, wiping his nose with a finger. Mike had never noticed the man's strong Scottish accent before; amidst all the general background noise and hubbub of the pizzeria, it was hard to make out the smaller details.

Shakily standing up, allowing air to enter his body, Mike regarded the old man with a grateful look.

"I…I don't know what to say. I jus-…thank you. That man was…was gonna kill me. I-…just thank you." Mike stuttered out, still heavily shaken from his close encounter with the Reaper. The janitor simply waved his hand in a gesture of nonchalance, staring at the body for a second before beginning to mop up the pool of blood that had slowly begun to drain out of the man's head.

"Ach, t'was nothin', lad. I was getting' tired'a the old fart, meself." He blurted out, causing Mike to perform a double take.

"Wh-Huh? How long have you known this guy for?"

"Bah, longer than I'd like. He's been doin' this fer years now. Stranglin' night guards, that is. Aye, I've even killed 'im more than once ta save you folks. Always seems ta come back. It's strange." The elderly janitor replied, adjusting his glasses and stroking his ginger beard.

"So…he's immortal?" Mike asked, his voice laced with dread. The Scotsman in front of him scoffed, leaning on his bloodied mop handle.

"Aye, I s'pose ye can put it that way. 'E was jus' a child, a long time ago. Back when Fredbear's was still goin'. I used ta work there, y'know. Always been the janitor fer these places. Ain't nobody done a better job at it than me." He continued, Mike now catching a faint, but strong, whiff of the Scot's gin-laced breath. Grimacing slightly, Mike readied himself for further interrogation of the man.

However, as he went to ask his next question, the rumbling of multiple heavy footsteps interrupted him abruptly. Thundering down the West Hall, the footsteps progressively got closer as Mike flinched, still jumpy from his employer's assassination attempt. The janitor merely continued to stand stock-still, leaning on his broom, completely unfazed.

Freddy was first to round the corner, followed closely by Chica and Bonnie, the latter seeming to drop a slight smile upon seeing Mike. Freddy first looked to Mike's surprised face, then to the body that lay in front of him, then finally to the janitor. Placing his thick paws on his round head, Freddy fumbled with his words.

"Ha-buuh, I-h-whu…What the **BEJEEZUS** is going on in here?!" His deep voice thundered, voice cracking to a comedically high pitch upon reaching the crescendo of his frantic question.

Mike simply waved at the bear awkwardly, shuffling away from the pool of blood slightly. The janitor once again got to mopping it up, muttering to himself as he did so.

"Hey, Freddy…" Mike trailed off, unsure of what he could say that would help in making the situation he was in look sane. Freddy stared, unblinking, for a few seconds before pointing at the body in a fit of horror.

"WHY IS THERE A DEAD GUY ON MY FLOOR?!" He babbled, his exaggerated facial expression making him look as though he had arrived straight from a Disney cartoon. Mike sighed, looking at the Scotsman behind him.

"It's a long story. You, er, may want to get something to eat." Mike muttered, rubbing the back of his neck in a gesture of embarrassment. At the mention of the word 'eat', Chica immediately perked up.

"I'm all fer dat!" She exclaimed happily, seemingly entirely unfazed by the dead body on the pizzeria floor. Upon receiving strange looks from both Freddy and Bonnie, Chica looked confused. "…What? Is dere somethin' on my beak?"

After about an hour had passed, Mike finished explaining the events that had transpired earlier on in the night. The janitor had stuck around to hear it, seemingly interested in what had happened before he had arrived. Freddy simply stood in front of Mike silently, too baffled for words.

"So…you were nearly throttled by…an old man?" He eventually asked, his green eyes wide and uncomprehending. Mike merely nodded in response. Looking to the floor, Freddy sagged his shoulders almost imperceptively; he seemed to have been sighing, though it would have been made more obvious had he had lungs.

"Oh, boy. Think of what harbouring a dead body'll do to our reputation." The bear muttered to nobody in particular, his expression bitter yet professional. At his remark, his semi-circular ears twitched as he heard a derisive snort from the other side of the room.

Looking up at the source of the sound, he was met with a sour glare from the janitor, whom had insisted that Mike call him 'Crazy Dave' as 'everyone else does already'. The man spit on the checkered floor in defiance before promptly mopping it up again.

"That dinnae stop ye from shovin' innocent people inta suits like bloody couch stuffin', though, did it?" He venomously rebutted, resting his broom on the wall. Freddy bared his cylindrical teeth at the man.

"Oh, now you're speaking out of your ass. You wouldn't be saying that if my hand hadn't slipped all that time ago, would you?" Freddy replied agitatedly. At this, the Scotsman a few feet across from him slowly ran a rough hand across his own cheek, feeling the indentation of a thick scar as he did.

"Maybe not. But ah wouldn't say it slipped." He muttered simply in response.

Sensing the tension that was thick in the air, Chica decided to take matters into her own hands. Standing up, she attempted to diffuse the situation. Raising her hands into the air happily, she announced, "Hey, dere's no need t' be such meanie-pantses, guys! Dis is Mikey's last night! We should be havin' fun; celebratin'! Come on, guys, waddaya say?"

Looking hopefully to Freddy, it quickly clicked in the mind of the bear that she wanted an answer.

Fumbling with his bow-tie, he muttered, "Oh, yes, of course. Heh." Before turning to Mike and staring him in the eye. "I'm terribly sorry about that, Mike. Chica is, of course, correct. This is a good night for you; we should celebrate it and remember the short time we had you with us." He finished solemnly, clutching his top hat to his chest in an apologetic manner.

"Bah, it's nothin', big guy. No worries." Mike replied, smiling at the animatronic bear that leaned over him anxiously. Smiling, Freddy then raised his voice, seeming to be attempting to imitate typical TV show announcers.

"Well then…llladies and gentlemen, let us commence the fun!" He shouted rambunctiously, extending his thick arms towards the ceiling whilst smiling a wide grin. Chica cheered for the bear's extravagant announcement, Mike grinning as Bonnie simply smirked. He leaned on the East Hall door, staring at Mike with a jealous gleam in his eye. Dave tutted to himself quietly.

_Don't worry yourself, Bonnie. He's leaving tomorrow, and Chica's never gonna see him again. That gives you plenty of time to win her over._ Smiling at his own reasoning, Bonnie slowly stood up entirely and joined in on the fun. Time ticked by, until eventually 12:00AM dawned upon the party-goers.

Crazy Dave swore to himself as he stared at the clock, Mike hearing him mutter, "Imma be late fer me chess game! Shite!" before the man bolted out of the room, seemingly heading towards the Backstage area. Chica let out a chuckle as she heard him yell, "Don'tchu worry, Endo! Imma comin'!" faintly.

Freddy turned to the West Hall door, tipping his top hat at the night guard reluctantly.

"Well, it's 12:00AM, and…you know the drill. Since we likely won't be seeing you tomorrow, I just want to say that it's been an absolute pleasure, Mike. I don't think any of us will be forgetting you any time soon." He remorsefully muttered, his sad eyes flicking over to Chica rapidly as he uttered his last sentence.

He took a step towards the door before Chica's eyes began to literally glow with inspiration.

"Freddy! Wait!" She began, waiting for the huge bear to turn to her quizzically before she began.

"Why don't we stay with Mike fer d' night? I mean, we've gotten ovah our violentness, n' if any uv us _do_ turn, we've got two udder pals dere to hold us back!" The spring chicken propositioned, confidently fiddling with her apron. Her beak had upturned to form a smile.

Freddy's eyes gleamed with surprise at the idea, completely caught off-guard by Chica's surprisingly logical solution. If any of them _did_ turn, there would, indeed, be two other animatronics of equal strength there to hold them back and stop them from hurting Mike! Plus, he would get free protection from Foxy! It was fool-proof!

Not to mention, with the Marionette out of commission, everything would go far more smoothly as a result!

His large face gaining a larger smile, Freddy turned to the chicken and placed a large hand onto her shoulder. "Chica, you are a genius!" He exclaimed, the three happy friends completely unaware of the red glare burning into them from the sidelines. There Bonnie stood, arms crossed as he scowled angrily.

_Great. Just frickin' great. Six hours of Chica-Mike bonding time! Fantastic! Fan-goddamn-tastic! _He thought to himself, his animatronic brain overloaded with anger. Well, what was six hours compared to a lifetime? Nothing to worry about, no doubt. He was just fretting over nothing, like some kind of housewife.

If no two humans could get that close to one another over the space of six hours, how could a human and an animatronic? It would be a moral battlefield! He had nothing to worry about.

Although, with the way Chica kept stealing glances at the young man's deep blue eyes, Bonnie still managed to find himself doubting.

Five minutes into the night, and not much had changed. Chica, Freddy and Mike were still simply goofing off, completely uncaring of the world around them. Bonnie still leaned by the East door, staring at them goof off. He could not help but occasionally find himself lost in Chica's beautiful pink eyes, though, finding that whole minutes would be shaved off of the clock whenever he did so.

He thought about asking her to have dinner with him after Mike was gone, in order to give them some extra bonding time to make up for the time that Mike had so carelessly stole from them. Nodding to himself, he decided that he would, indeed, do just that.

A few more minutes of uneventfulness passed, until a loud scraping sound reverberated throughout the pizzeria. The joyful air that Mike and the animatronics had about them quickly fizzled out, all three of them halting their shenanigans as they began looking at each other uncertainly. Bonnie's ear twitched, hearing the sound a little further off this time. It was coming from his side of the pizzeria.

Suddenly, it clicked in his artificial mind. Women liked a brave man; a man that would be willing to do anything to save his girl…this was his chance!

Putting on a courageous face, the bunny straightened up both his posture and his ears, gaining the attention of his two friends and Mike.

"That came from my side of the building. I'll go see what decided to make all that noise." He whispered, his voice carrying a hard edge to it. Chica and Freddy both fixed him with shocked gazes, their concern for his safety overriding their own worries. Mike, too, tensed up slightly at the bunny's mention of leaving the group.

"No, Bonnie! It's too dangerous! What if it's Fawxy?!" Chica asked worriedly, her face contorted into one of fear. _Good_. Everything was going exactly as Bonnie had envisioned it. The bunny balled up his purple fists, already having turned to face the door. He looked over his shoulder at the chicken, his smirking face hiding his intense nervousness. He didn't want her to know he was a coward, after all.

"Well, I'll jab him with a…right hook." He replied, breathily muttering the punchline of his pun to Chica. He then promptly lumbered out of the office as Freddy, Chica and Mike all stood in the centre of the room, at a collective loss for words.

Then, after a few seconds, Mike spoke.

"Oh! Right HOOK! I get it! I guess that's…kinda funny…" He exclaimed, the two animatronics next to him 'Oh'ing in unison as they figured out the purple bunny's joke.

"That's…kind of a crappy line to go out on, huh?" Mike continued, Freddy unable to help himself as he nodded.

Meanwhile, Bonnie had traversed the West Hall as silently as a huge animatronic rabbit could, his red eyes darting around the Party Room as he pushed open the doors leading to it. His large mouth was hanging open slightly, unable to help it as he felt a tight knot of fear within his metal stomach. He wanted to return to the office _badly_, but he knew that Chica would not respect him if he did.

Thus, he continued on into the murky blackness of the pizzeria, unaware of the pair of white eyes in the corner of the room that seemed to watch his every movement.

Mike, Freddy and Chica were bored, to say the least; they had already exhausted all of their games, and they were only about thirty minutes into the night! Assuming Bonnie was still investigating the pizzeria, nobody had begun to question his lengthy disappearance yet. Mike sat, slumped over in his chair, as he read a magazine that he had found whilst rummaging through the drawers on his office desk. Freddy had recommended it to him, and Mike could definitely see why.

The magazine was named 'Gentleman's Weekly'; he had been delving into an article about why men had to keep their monocles properly polished at all times when Chica let out an audible yawn. As both Freddy and Mike looked over to her, the chicken having sat on Mike's desk, she regarded them both with tired pink eyes.

"Me waking you up early must have taken a worse toll on you than I'd suspected…" Mike trailed off regretfully, staring at the drowsy chicken with apologetic eyes. Chica stared back at him, smiling caringly.

"Don'tchu worry, Mikey. It's just the boredom, s'all. It ain't your fault, I prawmise." She reassured him, getting up to rest a gentle hand on his shoulder. Shocked, Mike stared at the hand for a few seconds, unsure of what to say.

He looked into the chicken's eyes, and she did the same to him. They locked gazes for what felt like hours, but were actually minutes. Eventually, with Freddy watching excitedly, Chica began to move her beak closer to Mike's mouth. Mike, caught off guard, quickly licked his dry lips before puckering them slightly, the chicken moving ever-closer.

They locked lips.

Or, at least, they would have if not for Chica veering downwards at the very last second, causing Mike's lips to miss hers completely. She instead laid her head on his chest and sat on his lap before slowly closing her vibrant eyes, falling into the enticing clutches of sleep.

Freddy smacked his own face with a thick paw, groaning in annoyance.

Oblivious to Freddy's plight to hook the pair up, Mike tensed up for but a few seconds as he stared in surprise at the exhausted animatronic that was currently lying on top of him. He quickly relented in his attempts at waking her up again, though, instead simply slumping back in his chair as he noticed how adorable she sounded when snoring.

_That's the best he's going to get, isn't it?_ Freddy thought to himself as he sighed.

"Hello? Anybody in here?" Bonnie exclaimed to no one in particular, the pizza-laden walls of the pizzeria becoming far more unnerving in the dark. He had never really been himself at night; he had always reverted to his night mode. Was this how those poor night guards felt?

Slowly readjusting his red bowtie, the purple bunny proceeded onwards into the gloom.

He had to find something, for crying out loud! He needed to assert his dominance in front of Mike! _Please let me find just a stray cat or something, anybody that is listening… _The bunny begged silently, raring to beat something up.

Then, a noise from backstage.

Ears twitching slightly, Bonnie turned to look at the large door to the small room, the grey material near-seamlessly blending into the blackened environment of the restaurant. Wringing his hands nervously, Bonnie lumbered towards the door.

It felt like an age had passed as his large hand reached up to rest on the cold, smooth surface, the nervous purple bunny trembling with both excitement and fear. Gathering up his determination, the animatronic mammal pushed the door open and charged into the confined area recklessly. His large feet slid to a halt as he leaned on the table in the middle of the room, surveying the scene that had unfolded within its iron walls.

Costume heads had been knocked off of the multiple shelves lining the – usually restricted – section of the pizzeria, piles of eyeless Freddy masks having accumulated on the reflective floor. The endoskeleton that usually sat on the metal table Bonnie had been resting on mere moments ago was nowhere to be seen, appearing to have either been carried away or to have slunk off to some other part of the building.

The props that sat in the corner of the room appeared to have been raided, the numerous guitars and microphones that usually sat there having dwindled in number significantly. Upon closer inspection, Bonnie realised the ones that had been taken were cracked and splintered on the other side of the room; something had thrown them.

Growing agitated, Bonnie had had enough. Balling his heavy fists up in anger, he turned to the opposite corner of the room and began to warily look around. As he did so, he began to shout.

"Whoever the Hell's done all this crap…knock it off! Otherwise, I knock _you_ down!" He warned aggressively.

Footsteps began to audibly shuffle from what sounded like an area _behind_ one of the walls.

The large bunny rabbit scowled, his head following the noise. _He knew where the owner of those footsteps was hiding_. The faint noise was coming from the room that the company had stored the…spares…in. Grunting to himself, Bonnie realised the culprits of all the damage were likely a group of hooligans that had been feeling lucky when they saw the defenceless pizzeria. Cracking his large knuckles, the rabbit decided to take it upon himself to teach the hapless teenagers the error of their ways.

Near-silently pushing the Freddy mannequin that blocked the entrance to the storage compartment aside, Bonnie got ready to pounce upon nearing the cloth that covered the enormous tunnel to it with his three-fingered hand. Deciding to turn his eye-lights on, so as to look more menacing, the animatronic deftly swiped the sheet of artificial steel away.

What he saw on the other side of the fabric, however, was _certainly not_ a group of hooligans.

"What the-! Y-You! But…But you were deactivated! You shouldn't be here!" He yelled, terror causing him to abandon subtlety. The purple rabbit slowly began to back away from the tattered animatronic that stood only a few feet away from him, the other robot beginning to slowly give chase.

It fixed Bonnie with a wordless gaze, one of its eyes being locked into a permanent stare-off with the restaurant's tiled steel floor. Robotic ears weakly twitched as the long-forgotten piece of tech registered the bunny's terrified exclamations, but did nothing about them. Instead, it simply continued to lumber towards him mindlessly.

Lower jaw quivering, Bonnie began to paw at the air behind him in pursuit of the door he had entered through. He could only find air, however.

And then the sound of the door closing filled his large ears.

Turning around hesitantly, Bonnie gasped in horror at the sight of another one of the rejects, still resting its iron hand on his only way out of the room with an air of disturbing finality. Turning around once again, overwhelmed with the prospect of having to fend off two of them at once, he did not expect to see the Puppet staring back at him.

Nearly leaping back before promptly remembering the other reject that was likely closing in, Bonnie instead simply flinched as he screamed. He desperately tried to find a way around the mime-like entity to no avail. She then promptly grabbed him and dragged him over to the metal table in the centre of the room, not a word exchanged between them.

Laying him down roughly onto it, the Puppet simply smiled a sweet smile upon hearing the bunny groan in pain. She then clicked her fingers with leader-like authority, silently pointing at Bonnie's confused face. She then walked off.

Bonnie tried to lean up and see where she had gone, but did not get very far as he was quickly pinned down once again by the unnerving duo of scrapped automatons. They leered down at him through dull, listless eyes, their blank metal faces taunting him malevolently.

Bonnie thrashed in their arms, but they were simply too strong. They had been built with him in mind, after all. He tried frantically to apologise to them for what had transpired between them over the years, but he did not get very far. His pleas instead descended into maddening screams for mercy as he noticed the Puppet appear from a corner of the room, the sadistic megalomaniac clutching one of the many fallen Freddy masks in an eager grip.

She grinned at the helpless rabbit; a terrible sight, indeed. Seeming to have been completely ignoring his terror, the Puppet nonchalantly glanced at the Freddy mask a few times.

"What _are_ you so worried about? It's not like I'm going to hurt you or anything!" She sarcastically remarked, promptly laughing at her own wit thereafter. She then raised her claws, lovingly inspecting them as a doctor would his needles.

"Well…this might sting a little, actually." She muttered icily, rapidly plunging all three of her thick claws deep into the purple animatronic's suit. He screamed in pain, frantically kicking his legs out to hit at air. A fleck of oil hit the Puppet's face, prompting her to enter a laughing fit as she began to slowly drag her claws downwards, the steel blades still being embedded into Bonnie's 'flesh'.

Screaming in terror and pain, Bonnie violently thrashed on the table, overcoming the animatronics that had pinned him down for a split second. The Puppet finally drew her claws out of the rabbit's skin upon feeling them hit the table underneath him; looking down at her work proudly, she smacked the purple bunny's face to get his attention. Already he had begun to grow weak form oil loss. She couldn't have that.

"Well, would you look at that...It's a clean hole!" She uttered to a – now drowsy – Bonnie, breaking out into another laughing fit. Oh, how she loved moments like this. Mockingly poking her long finger through the hole she had made and feeling it hit the table through the rabbit, the Puppet raucously snickered to herself.

However, she was far from done.

Bonnie's screams were muffled by the closed door of the backstage area, ensuring that nobody unwanted would be able to hear his anguish. His torture went on for another two hours after that, the Puppet being quick to bind up his wounds and refill him with oil whenever she noticed him growing weak.

Then, once she was finished with her work, her masterpiece was complete.

She tauntingly held up a mirror for the heavily wounded Bonnie, allowing him to see her improvements. The rabbit made no visible reaction to seeing his mangled, torn face, simply fixing the reflective surface with a droopy-eyed stare.

_Yes. She had broken him._

_Now the __**real**__ fun could commence._

Completely alienated to the outside world in only two hours, Bonnie's mind was empty. The Puppet had, effectively, brainwashed him through torture, and he could do nothing about it. Sitting up as the Puppet ordered her minions to release him, the bunny looked to her for guidance.

She simply stood, completely silent, for a few moments as she lovingly admired her work.

She had scratched off most of his artificial fur, leaving only the rotten, olive skin of his suit beneath. She had chopped off part of his right ear, leaving only a thick stump with coloured wires jutting out of the gap. She had sliced his muzzle brutally, carving his mouth into a sick permanent smile as segments of his lip slowly flaked off and into his own mouth.

Well, it wasn't necessarily _his_ muzzle, per-se. She had, in fact, ripped his original face off and replaced it with one of the Freddy masks from the floor; she had, of course, promptly stripped it of all of its fur soon afterwards.

She had carved an enormous hole into his rancid chest, exchanging the bunny's red bow-tie for one of Freddy's black ones. She had even gone so far as to alter his endoskeleton ripping off its feet before shoving 'stilts' onto the ends of his legs, causing him to become at least a foot taller than he had been before.

Yes, he was her pride and joy. He was a walking example of what would happen to animatronics who defied her, and she loved it. However, Bonnie would simply be a name unbefitting for her prince; for her _son_. It would bring back too many foul memories of the purple bunny and his ruining of her fun with Foxy.

No, the bunny definitely needed a new name.

And she knew exactly what that name would be.

Investing another 10 minutes of the night into teaching the animatronic his new name through brute force, the Puppet soon found herself clutching her own temples in frustration. He just wasn't getting it! She needed this change, though; she needed it so much that she would have been willing to kill her _real_ son to make the stupid robot learn that name.

It was her ticket to full control of the pizzeria, for God's sakes.

As the rejects stood entirely still, entranced by segments of the wall or the floor, the Puppet tried once again.

"For the last **goddamn** time…what is your NAME?" She snarled at Bonnie, the mouldy-olive-coloured husk that had once had a personality slowly turning his head towards her. His grey eyes locked with her white pupils as she glared angrily at him.

Then he spoke.

His deep, warbling voice sounded like a thousand rusty gears grinding up against one another, but he actually _spoke_.

"**Sp…Spring…traaaap.**" He grunted, his new voice box having been replaced with one of the pizzeria's old spares, once again giving him extreme difficulty in speaking in _normal_ situations.

And, well, any situation involving the Puppet was anything _but_ normal.

Instantly raising her head at the sound of a voice that was not her own, the Puppet smiled in delight as she saw her big boy saying his first word; of course, his mouth moved as if she had replaced his hydraulic joints with toffee, but she was still proud of her creation.

"I…say that again." She beamed, her sadistic personality being briefly replaced by maternal instincts.

"**M-My…naaaame…i-isss…Sp-Spriiiingtraaaaap.**" Bonnie slowly answered; except he was Bonnie no longer.

His mother said he was Springtrap now.

And Springtrap could not have been happier.

"That's...that's right, sweetie! Your name IS Springtrap!" The Puppet replied, elated beyond relief as she briefly hugged the horrifying abomination that she had spawned. "…And who are these?" She soothingly asked, gesturing to the rejects as they continued to stare at walls aimlessly.

"**B-Brotheeeeerrrss…**" Springtrap replied simply, deciding not to put himself through unnecessary pain in exchange for eloquent sentences. His whole body burned constantly as things were; he did not need to amplify that feeling.

"Yes! Brothers! These are your brothers!" The Puppet said, overjoyed, before quickly hesitating.

"Oh. And sister, hehe. Sorry." She muttered, apologising to one of the other rejects. It simply stared back.

"So…why are you called Springtrap?" She asked sinisterly, already knowing the answer.

"**Beca-Because…Springtr-trap…kill…peeeests…**" The olive rabbit beast answered, his ears drooping slightly upon the mentioning of death.

"And what are Freddy and Mike to you, sweetie?" She asked sternly, hiding her anxiousness behind her motherly tone. If her boy still considered them friends, even after _all_ she'd done for him…

Well.

"**Bear…peeeest. M-Miike…peeeest.**" He answered, adamant in pleasing his mother.

She clasped her clawed hands together, delighted out of her mind.

Yes, this was indeed her son.

"And…my sweet child, what exactly to you do to pests?" She asked, her voice carrying a certain edge. The night was dwindling quickly; they needed to act _now_, and the Puppet was not willing to waste any more time.

Springtrap stared his 'mother' straight in the eye, knowing the answer and taking delight in that knowledge.

"**I…Springtrap.**

_**I…kill…pests**_**.**"

**Another A/N Oh My God: YES! I'm SO happy with this chapter! Everything went perfectly, and thanks to my school being generous, I didn't get any homework today! Free days are pretty cool, heh.**

**Another thing: Crazy Dave belongs to A Wandering Reader, one of my fantastic reviewers! He will be in an upcoming fanfic of his, so definitely go give it a read! With Dave in it, it's bound to be a barrel of laughs!**

**Also, be sure to send me character ideas if you come up with them! I may not be actively asking for them, but I will definitely be willing to accept them if I like them! ^.^**

**So…this one was a dark chapter. Of course, I adore dark chapters, but you guys might not. What did you think of it? Should I focus on making my chapters darker form hereon? **

**Also, did you like the pathetic attempts at humour I threw into the middle of the chapter, there? Heh. Personally, I could smell the cheese from behind my flippin' computer screen. :B**

**What did you think of the so close, yet so far moment between Chica and Mike during the middle segment there? I am SO sorry in advance, by the way. That was mean, and I loved writing it. xD**

**What do you think of Springtrap's arrival in the fanfic? Also, who could the rejects be? It's pretty obvious, once you think about it. Trust me. If the wait is going to tear you apart, however, then be sure to visit my DeviantART page! I'll link it on my profile; I post pictures hinting at chapters in progress there! Give it a look-see, why not? ;3**

**Finally, what you've all (hopefully) been waiting for…**

**SHOUTOUUUUUTS!**

***Space Jam music plays in the background***

**Godzilla King of Monsters: OH MY GOODNESS, ALMIGHTY REPTILE KING! I'M SO SORRY! Er, I mean, almighty dinosaur king! No, wait. Dragon king? **

**Pokemon king?**

**That might be it.**

**Coldjack007: Trust me, the shameless exposition does not end there! My headcanon has only just begun! You must see my true power to believe it!**

**Guest: NOOOO! YOU WERE SO YOUNG!**

***Picks up small strips of Guest whilst sobbing***

**UnsafestMoss81: Hopefully this does it for you, man! Hope you enjoyed! :3**

**The Wandering Reader: Z0MG 2 SHOUTOUTS? HH-WHOOAAA!**

**Seriously, though, I'm super happy you're gonna stick around, man. ^.^ Hope you like where the story is going! I also hope you liked my interpretation of Dave!**

**Solaris456: Thanks so much, man! Glad to see you've stuck around :D**

**NameHere: Haven't you learnt a thing, my dear? There IS no happiness in MY fanfics!**

**BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! *Thunderclap***

**Mamamu-yan: OH MY GOOD GRAVY, THANK YOU SO MUCH! **

**I've genuinely been having trouble trying to reply to that; it's such wonderful praise, and I sincerely have no idea how to respond. Hopefully, a Super-Ultra-Mega-Super-Duper-Pooper-Scooper shoutout will suffice! I truly hope you'll stick around, man. I'm so glad you like my fic! ^.^**

**Welp, that's it! Thanks for reading this chapter, and I will SEE YOU…in the next one. Buh-byeee!**


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